Sfrnm  tl|r  ffitbrary  nf 

PrnfrBBor  S^njamtn  Imktnri&gr  HarftHb 

lpquratl|pb  bg  l|tm  tn 

tJ|r  Etbrarii  nf 

Prinrrtnn  Slliralogtral  g>rmtttarQ 

BL  240  .E5  1898 

Elder,  William,  1840-1903. 

Ideas  from  nature 


IDEAS  FROM  NATURE 


TALKS  WITH  STUDENTS 


BY 


WILLIAM  ELDER,  A.  M.,  Sc.  D. 

Professor  of  Chemistry,  Colby  University 


PHILADELPHIA 

American  Baptist  Publication  Society 

1420  Chestnut  Street 


Copyright  1898  by  the 
American  Baptist  Publication  Society 


from  tbe  Soctct^'g  own  preas 


%0 

Henr2  "K.  I^obinz,  T),  T}, 


I.  DESIGN 7 

II.  OBJECTIOMS 47 

III.  ENERGy 87 

IV.  NATURAL  LAW  AND  MIRACLE    ...  127 
V.  NATURE  A  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  165 


I 

DESIGM 


The  world, 

The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 

.  .  .  and  God  made  it  all ! 

— Browning 

He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear  ? 
He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not  see? 


Physical  science  affirms  that  the  sen- 
sible universe  is  made  up  of  matter  and 
energy  alone.  The  saying  is  unquestion- 
ably true  of  the  sensible  universe ;  eye 
and  ear  and  the  other  bodily  avenues 
through  which  knowledge  flows  in  upon 
us,  confirm  the  existence  of  these  alone — 
matter,  the  material  of  which  all  bodies 
consist ;  energy,  the  mysterious  cause  of 
changes  in  matter,  called  the  phenomena 
of  nature. 

But   physical    science   does   not   affirm 

that  the  universe  contains  nothing  beyond 

these.     It  studies  that  which  ^. 

.,    ^,      Discovepin0 
appears  m  nature  with   the 

Realities 
senses    as    its    instruments,       ^ 

and  reports  truthfully  the  grand  results  of 
its  search ;  but  it  gives  no  reason  for  con- 
cluding that  other  realities  may  not  exist 
beyond  its  proper  field  of  investigation. 
In  fact,  there  is  implied  in  this  use  of  the 
9 


Ideas  from  jiature 


senses  the  existence  of  another  reality,  a 
something  behind  the  senses  which  em- 
ploys and  directs  them ;  a  thinking  power 
within  us  without  which  there  could  be  no 
knowledge  of  matter  or  energy  or  aught 
else,  the  self-conscious  mind  which  not 
only  receives  impressions  through  the 
senses,  but  actively  seeks  knowledge  by 
their  use,  which  observes,  reflects,  classi- 
fies, reasons.  Clearly  it  is  possible  that 
the  mind,  on  which  such  high  qualities 
have  been  bestowed,  may  be  able  to  find 
in  nature  evidences  of  things  other  than 
the  phenomena  produced  by  the  ceaseless 
action  of  energy  on  matter. 

To  assure  ourselves  that  very  different 
kinds  of  knowledge  may  be  gained  from 
the  same  source,  let  us  seek  the  aid  of  a 
homely  illustration.  When  we  read  from 
the  printed  page,  the  eye  makes  known  to 
us  only  two  existences,  the  white  paper 
and  the  familiar  black  marks  upon  it.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  we  are  scarcely 
conscious  of  these.  That  something  be- 
hind the  eye,  using  the  eye  merely  as  an 
instrument,  finds  in  those    familiar  black 


Desigri 


marks  signs  that  have  a  meaning  entirely 
beyond  themselves.  As  we  connect  these 
intelligently,  by  a  power  quite  other  than 
that  of  the  senses,  we  find  ourselves  in 
possession  of  something  radically  different 
from  any  quality  of  the  paper  or  the  ink 
which  were  employed  to  convey  it,  some- 
thing as  real  as  either  of  them,  but  having 
an  altogether  different  form  of  existence; 
we  have  an  idea. 

And  yet  we  might  profitably  study  either 
the  paper  or  the  type,  those  realities  sensi- 
ble to  hand  or  eye.  A  record  of  the  discov- 
eries and  inventions  which  have  resulted 
in  furnishing  a  cheap  material  suitable  for 
receiving  the  written  or  printed  letter, 
would  reveal  many  things  closely  connected 
with  human  progress.  Still  more  curious 
and  valuable  knowledge  would  be  gained 
if  we  set  ourselves  to  study  the  printed 
characters,  their  forms,  history,  meaning, 
tracing  them  back  to  their  rude  genesis, 
back  through  writing,  hieroglyph,  cunei- 
form, to  the  man,  Accad  be  he,  or  Sumir- 
ian,  who  in  a  moment  of  inspiration  first 

used  marks  to  represent  thought. 
II 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


Fascinating  as  such  research  would  be, 
we  rate  the  value  of  its  results  low  when 
compared  with  that  of  the  ideas  which  the 
characters  on  the  paper  convey  to  our 
minds.  Think  how  precious  these  may  be ;  a 
''  Novum  Organmn!'  a  '^  Principia,''  the  long 
record  of  scientific  discoveries  from  Aris- 
totle to  our  own  time — filling  the  universe 
with  light,  guiding  the  progress  of  the 
world — a  poem  by  Homer  or  Shakespeare, 
a  philosophy  by  Plato  or  Bacon,  or  more 
worthy  than  all  these  the  clear,  imperative 
call  to  duty  by  inspired  prophet  or  Teacher 
qualified  to  tell  us,  what  most  of  all  we 
need  to  know,  how  to  live  well  this  life 
which  we  can  live  but  once. 

Such  things,  time's  most  precious  lega- 
cies, come  to  us  through  the  humble  in- 
strumentality of  the  printed  page — little 
daubs  of  printer's  ink  on  a  cheap  white  paper. 
In  like  manner,  as  we  study  the  properties 
of  matter  and  the  manifestations  of  energy 
or  force,  we  find  ourselves  gaining  ideas 
whose  reality  we  can  no  more  doubt  than 
we  can  question  the  existence  of  earth  and 
sun,  light  and  heat.      It  may  be  that  among 


the  ideas  taught  through  the  materials  and 
operations  of  nature  there  are  truths  of 
still  greater  value  than  knowledge  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  universe,  even  truths  that 
can  aid  us  in  the  formation  of  belief,  in  the 
building  of  character,  in  the  conduct  of 
life.     If  so,  we  want  them. 

Material  things  are  present  and  near. 
By  their  presence  they  may  shut  out  from 
consideration  other  things  at  least  as  worthy 
as  they,  while  their  nearness  may  so  exag- 
gerate them  as  to  pervert  our  estimate  of 
the  varied  concerns  of  life,  which  must  be 
taken  as  a  whole  and  in  true  perspective  to 
afford  us  a  just  estimate  of  their  relative 
values.  More  than  this,  it  may  be  the 
higher  function  of  these  material  and  visi- 
ble things  that  surround  us  daily  to  teach 
lessons  of  realities  beyond  the  reach  of 
sense. 

It  will  be  a  great  gain  for  us  if  what  we 
have  learned  of  the  things  that  are  seen 
can  be  made  to  witness  to  us  of  things  un- 
seen, of  truths  perhaps  as  much  beyond  the 
facts  of  science  as  the  meaning  of  the 
golden  rule  outvalues  what  may  be  known 
13 


Ideas  from  plature 


of  the  curious  marks  that  represent  the 
words  conveying  the  meaning  of  that  pre- 
cept to  us. 

With  this  end  in  view,  let  us  take  up 
some  of  the  most  famiUar  topics  of  the 
classroom  and  inspect  them  once  more. 

When  we  have  witnessed  an  experiment 
in  chemistry  and  learned  what  we  may  of 
.        the  changes  produced  in  the 
.  substances  used  by  the  forces 

*  that    acted    upon    them,   we 

are  certain  that  the  same  experiment, 
that  is,  one  made  with  the  same  materials, 
in  the  same  way,  and  under  the  same  con- 
ditions, will  always  yield  exactly  the  same 
results.  We  find  that  alkalies  and  acids 
have  always  their  appropriate  action  ;  and 
so  strong  is  our  conviction  of  this  regular- 
ity that  any  apparent  deviation  from  it  is 
set  down  to  our  own  error.  Here  then, 
we  find  in  nature  something  besides  the 
matter  and  energy  with  which  physical 
science  deals,  an  idea  which  matter  and 
force  are  the  means  of  conveying  to  us,  an 
idea  so  evident  that  its  validity  cannot  be 
questioned. 

14 


Design 


The  idea  is  that  of  order  in  nature,  and 
so  universally  is  this  recognized  that  it  is 
embodied  in  one  of  our  most  familiar  terms, 
the  "laws  of  nature,"  by  which  we  mean 
the  observed  regularity  of  natural  phe- 
nomena and  express  our  confidence  in  the 
continuance  of  that  regularity.  It  is  the 
boast  of  modern  science  that  it  has  caused 
the  acceptance  of  this  idea,^  that  it  has  pro- 
duced everywhere  the  belief  that  nature  is 
governed  according  to  laws  that  are  uniform 
in  their  operation.  Our  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  this  belief  is  so  strong  that  it  can- 
not be  overcome.  Although,  from  its 
very  nature,  it  is  incapable  of  demonstra- 
tion, we  submit  ourselves  to  its  guidance 
in  every  concern  of  life.^  No  sane  man 
would  expect  other  than  a  fatal  result  if  he 

1  It  must  admitted  that  this  thought  was  famihar  to 
the  writers  of  the  Bible  long  before  the  birth  of  the 
modern  sciences. 

2  The  moral  significance  of  this  reliableness  of  nature 
is  thus  expressed  by  the  author  of  the  "  Unseen  Uni- 
verse" :  "We  have  perfect  trust  that  God,  whom  we 
believe  to  have  given  us  intelligence,  will  work  in  such 
a  way  as  not  to  put  us  to  permanent  intellectual  con- 
fusion" (p.  91). 

15 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


were  to  set  at  naught  the  law  of  gravitation 
by  stepping  off  the  edge  of  a  lofty  tower, 
or  disregard  the  laws  of  health  by  drink- 
ing a  deadly  poison.  Clearly  there  is  an 
established  order  in  nature,  banishing  from 
it  all  possibility  of  chance  or  accident. 

Now  we  know  that  laws  do  not  cause 
anything,  do  not  govern  anything.  The 
expression  ''  governed  by  law  "  is  inexact 
and  erroneous  in  all  cases,  and  when  applied 
to  nature  may  give  rise  to  hurtful  error. 
The  law  is  a  mere  statement,  powerless  in 
itself,  of  the  manner  in  which  the  power 
behind  the  law  governs.  The  laws  of 
nature  reveal  the  existence  of  a  power  be- 
hind nature,  whose  methods  they  are,  a 
power  capable  of  establishing  and  main- 
taining those  laws,  and  the  harmonious 
working  of  the  laws  proclaims  the  unity  of 
their  Author. 

But  we  must  notice  ,that  this  order  of 
nature  is  not  at  all  of  a  mechanical  kind. 
Men  sometimes  talk  of  natural  laws  as 
though  they  were  real  existences  in  them- 
selves, fulfilling  themselves  with  machine- 
like regularity  and  the  resistless  certainty 
i6 


Desigri 


of  blind  fate.  Science  does  not  warrant 
such  a  view.  We  have  learned  that  every 
event  must  be  ascribed  to  an  adequate 
cause,  that  similar  causes  produce  similar 
effects,  that  the  succession  of  cause  and 
effect  proceeds  in  unbroken  continuity. 

But  the  study  of  nature  utters  a  warn- 
ing here.  We  may  apply  the  idea  of  con- 
tinuity blindly ;  we  may  extend  it  too  far 
and  be  led  into  serious  error  ;  even  the  law 
may  be  used  unlawfully.  To  illustrate: 
We  take  a  bar  of  metal  and  place  it  over  a 
source  of  heat.  Its  temperature  rises, 
faster  or  slower  according  to  the  amount 
of  heat  received,  and  we  talk  of  cause  and 
effect;  the  volume  of  the  solid  increases 
also,  and  this  we  note  to  be  in  proportion 
to  the  rise  of  temperature.  So  we  may 
formulate  a  rule  and  fairly  determine  what 
volume  a  given  mass  of  this  metal  will 
have  at  different  temperatures.  But  our 
rule  is  only  applicable  within  narrow  limits, 
for  if  we  continue  our  experiment  we 
reach  a  point  where  a  new  thing  hap- 
pens, quite  at  variance  with  preceding  re- 
sults. Added  heat  no  longer  causes  rise 
B  17 


Ideas  fpom  jiatupe 


of  temperature  in  the  mass  of  metal,  but 
it  begins  to  flow  down  as  a  liquid  and  has 
assumed  a  new  state  of  existence  subject 
to  new  conditions  before  increased  heat 
again  begins  to  raise  its  temperature. 

Every  student  of  nature  knows  that  he 
is  constantly  meeting  with  the  unexpected, 
with  interruptions  of  continuity,  as  he  ad- 
vances in  his  knowledge  of  its  operations. 
Water,  taken  at  a  certain  temperature,  ex- 
pands whether  it  is  heated  or  cooled.  Va- 
riations of  temperature  alone  will  cause  it 
to  exist  as  a  solid,  a  liquid,  or  a  vapor. 
The  most  minute  acquaintance  with  its 
properties  in  the  solid  state  affords  no  in- 
dication of  its  qualities  as  a  liquid ;  and 
when  it  assumes  the  state  of  vapor  we 
must  begin  its  study  anew.  Acted  on  by 
heat  or  electricity,  water  is  suddenly 
changed  into  the  two  elementary  gases, 
oxygen  and  hydrogen,  each  possessing 
strongly  marked  characteristics,  but  neither 
giving  any  hint  of  the  properties  of  the 
familiar  liquid  formed  by  their  chemical 
union.  We  do  not  interpret  the  unex- 
pected events  as  caprice  or  violation  of 
i8 


Desigii 

law,  for  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  same 
thing  will  happen  again  under  the  same 
conditions.  The  truth  is  that  we  are  only 
beginning  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  real 
grandeur  of  creation,  even  of  that  part  of  it 
open  to  human  investigation.  Our  scientific 
knowledge,  though  so  extensive  and  valu- 
able in  the  aggregate,  is  small  when  com- 
pared to  the  unknown  which  still  eludes 
us.  Our  philosophic  understanding  of 
nature  is  yet  in  its  infancy.  So  Newton 
said  long  ago ;  so  Lord  Kelvin  repeats  to- 
day. 

All  this  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
nature  is  manifold  beyond  our  most  exalted 
anticipations.  What  we  have  experienced 
of  its  operations  is  sufficient  to  give  us 
confidence  in  its  orderly  government,  to 
convince  us  of  the  truth  of  the  great  doc- 
trine of  continuity ;  but  it  is  also  suffi- 
cient to  warn  us  that  this  doctrine  must 
be  applied  with  caution  and  humility. 
The  power  working  in  nature  is  evidently 
not  of  the  order  of  blind  force,  to  be  in- 
terpreted by  rules  of  mechanic  regularity, 
but  of  the  higher  order  of  will  and  intel- 
19 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


ligence.  This  order  of  the  world,  which 
no  one  dares  question  in  act  even  if  he 
would  in  thought,  finds  its  only  rational 
explanation  in  a  Divine  Ordainer. 

We  do  not  proceed  far  in  the  study  of 
nature  before  we  meet  with  another  idea, 

^     ,   .  that  of   skillful  contrivance. 

Goritrivance    ,..  .      •,  .    ^, 

We  recognize  it  m  the  prop- 
erties with  which  substances  have  been 
endowed,  as  in  the  properties  of  oxygen,  so 
resistless  when  its  chemical  activities  are 
aroused,  so  gentle  at  ordinary  temperatures, 
reducing  a  whole  city  to  ashes,  yet  bath- 
ing the  most  delicate  tissues  harmlessly  ; 
in  the  properties  of  carbon,  so  well  fitted 
to  serve  as  fuel,  yet  inert  and  harmless 
under  ordinary  conditions. 

This  fact  that  consummate  skill  is  shown 
in  the  structure  of  the  commonest  sub- 
stances which  we  use  daily  is  most  forcibly 
impressed  upon  us  when  we  strive  to  form 
some  conception  of  what  that  structure  is, 
and  to  find  out  how  the  properties  of  each 
substance  are  related  to  its  inner  constitu- 
tion. As  yet  we  have  no  hint  of  what 
that  relation  may  be. 


Caustic  soda  and  hydrochloric  acid  are 
bodies  possessing  well-known  properties, 
caustic,  corrosive,  poisonous.  Yet  when 
solutions  of  these  are  mixed  in  due  propor- 
tion all  these  properties  are  lost,  the  sub- 
stances themselves  disappear,  and  in  their 
places  are  found  water  and  common  salt, 
not  acid  nor  poisonous,  but  necessary  for 
foods.  Interpreted  by  the  most  daring 
inferences  of  chemical  theory  the  acid  and 
alkali  are  both  comparatively  simple  in 
composition,  and  the  change  which  goes 
on  when  these  were  converted  into  salt 
and  water  was  the  mere  exchange  of  cer- 
tain elements. 

We  may  perhaps  form  some  satisfactory 
conception  of  the  manner  in  which  this 
change  was  produced ;  but  when  we  ask 
the  reason  for  the  surprising  change  of 
properties  which  resulted  from  the  simple 
transference  of  material  parts  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  presence  of  a  mystery,  and 
are  obliged  to  be  content  with  a  simple 
statement  of  final  results.  Let  us  not 
allow  a  certain  vulgar  familiarity  with  the 
names  of  things  and  the  outside  of  things 


Ideas  from  platurs 


to  rob  us  of  the  valuable  lesson  which 
this  mystery  has  to  teach  us.  That  lesson 
is  reverence  for  the  surpassing  skill  ex- 
hibited in  the  inner  structure  of  material 
things  which  we  call  common  and  ordinary. 
Intimate  acquaintance  with  nature  does 
not  tend  to  lessen  admiration  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, reverence  grows  as  knowledge  grows. 
When  an  explanation  is  found  for  some- 
thing before  unknown,  it  brings  with  it  a 
revelation  of  more  mystery  beyond,  and 
all  explanations  point  forward  to  one  ulti- 
mate mystery  which  is  the  source  of  being. 
The  evidence  of  contrivance  in  nature 
is  more  clear  in  the  mutual  adaptations  of 
two  or  more  agencies  so  that 
Adaptation  t^ey  work  together  to  pro- 
duce  one  result.  This  idea  of  adaptation 
is  in  advance  of  that  of  contrivance,  how- 
ever intricate.  The  human  mind  finds 
much  to  stimulate  its  growth  in  a  study  of 
the  powers  and  properties  of  individual  sub- 
stances and  in  the  modes  of  operation  of 
various  forms  of  energy.  But  in  the  pres- 
ence of  these  we  are  driven  to  ask,  **  What 
end   do  they  serve  .?  "     When  the  mutual 

22 


relations  of  things  are  discovered  the  sig- 
nificance of  individual  functions  is  appre- 
ciated, and  we  the  better  understand  to 
what  extent  skill  is  shown  in  their  con- 
trivance. 

Thus  it  is  only  necesssary  to  heat  car- 
bon and  oxygen  together  to  cause  them  to 
combine  with  great  vigor,  evolving  a  gener- 
ous supply  of  heat.  Think  of  the  carbon, 
the  product  of  long  past  ages,  stored  up 
in  the  earth  in  the  form  of  mineral  coal, 
and  of  the  oxygen  free  in  the  atmosphere. 
In  them  man  has  furnished  to  his  hand  a 
mine  of  energy  which  he  may  call  forth  at 
his  will  to  minister  to  the  comfort  of  every- 
day life,  or  to  speed  the  work  of  the  world. 
Think  how  every  growing  plant  that  lifts 
its  leaves  to  the  sun  is  winning  back  this 
expended  energy  for  our  service  once  more, 
and  it  seems  ungrateful  to  begrudge  the 
name  Providence  to  such  consummately 
skillful  and  beneficent  contrivance  as  this. 

Again,  adaptation  is  most  distinctly 
shown  in  the  properties  with  which  certain 
substances  have  been  endowed  to  an  emi- 
nent degree,  fitting  them  to  fill  a  place  of 
23 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


first  importance  in  the  economy  of  nature. 
Water  is  a  good  instance  of  this,  on  account 
of  its  wide  distribution  and  varied  uses, 
and  our  comparative  familiarity  with  it.  It 
is  also  an  illustration  of  the  capital  fact 
that  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  substances  of 
which  we  know  most  that  this  evidence  is 
strongest. 

In  the  study  of  water  there  is  much  to 
challenge  attention  and  excite  admiration. 
We  are  familiar  with  it  as  a  liquid,  but  at  a 
temperature  not  very  low  it  becomes  a  solid, 
and  at  all  temperatures  of  the  earth  it 
escapes  into  the  air  as  an  invisible  gas  or 
vapor.  The  solid  snow  and  ice  wrap  the 
earth  as  in  a  warm  mantle  to  protect  it 
during  the  rigors  of  winter  ;  but  the  vapor 
of  water  in  the  air  has  a  yet  more  impor- 
tant office.  Water  is  supplied  in  unstinted 
amount,  in  ocean,  seas,  lakes,  rivers,  yet 
considering  its  varied  uses  in  nature,  we 
are  forced  to  conclude  that  there  is  not  a 
drop  too  much ;  about  three-fourths  of  the 
earth's  surface  is  covered  with  water  that 
the  remainder  may  be  fitted  to  become  the 
dwelling-place  of  man. 
24 


Desigri 


Consider  the  work  of  water  as  a  regulator 
and  distributer  of  heat.  It  is  fitted  for 
this  office  because  it  possesses  certain  prop- 
erties in  an  exceptionally  high  degree,  con- 
stituting it  the  climate-maker  of  the  world. 

In  the  first  place,  water  can  absorb  more 
heat  than  any  other  known  substance,  solid 
or  liquid.     By  this  means  it  ^^^  eiimate- 

cools  the  air  of  summer,  and  ,^  . 

Malrcr  of  the 
as    cold    weather  comes    on  . 

gives  out  the  heat  it  had 
absorbed,  to  moderate  the  severity  of 
winter.  An  island  in  the  ocean  has,  as 
every  one  knows,  an  equable  climate  for 
this  reason  ;  what  we  may  call  the  waste 
heat  of  summer  is  stored  away  and  held 
over  for  winter.  A  French  scientist 
lately  made  an  estimate  of  the  amount  of 
heat  absorbed  by  the  lake  of  Geneva  dur- 
ing summer  and  given  out  as  it  cools  at 
the  approach  of  winter ;  it  is  as  much  as 
would  be  produced  by  the  burning  of  three 
hundred  million  tons  of  coal.  How  much 
then,  must  the  ocean  take  up  and  give  out 
during  similar  changes,  and  how  beneficent 
must  be  its  effect  on  climate ! 
25 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


But  no  matter  how  great  a  capacity  for 
heat  water  may  possess,  it  must  at  last  be- 
come chilled  by  long-continued  cold.  Then 
at  a  temperature  not  very  low,  just  stim- 
ulating to  healthy  life,  it  solidifies,  or  as  we 
say,  freezes.  Here  a  most  curious  thing 
happens.  Each  cubic  foot  of  water  in 
freezing  gives  out  enough  heat  to  raise  the 
temperature  of  an  equal  amount  of  water, 
or  more  than  three  thousand  cubic  feet  of 
air,  seventy-nine  degrees.  This  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  general  law  that  a  substance 
in  solidifying  gives  out  heat,  but  in  the 
case  of  water  the  amount  thus  given  out 
is  exceptionally  great.  So  long  as  water 
is  freezing,  this  evolution  of  heat  continues, 
the  temperature  of  the  air  is  moderated, 
and,  what  is  even  of  greater  moment,  the 
rapidity  of  the  change  to  excessive  cold  is 
greatly  checked.  When  spring  comes,  the 
ice  and  snow  in  melting  must  take  back  all 
the  heat  they  had  given  out ;  melting  goes 
on  slowly ;  and  the  danger  of  flood  is  les- 
sened. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  processes 
affect  only  extreme  northern  and  southern 
26 


Design 

countries,  and  can  have  but  remote  influ- 
ence on  the  excessive  heat  of  the  tropics  ; 
but  for  moderating  this  heat  a  still  more 
liberal  provision  has  been  made.  Water 
evaporates  readily,  more  and  more  rapidly 
as  its  temperature  rises,  so  that  from  tropi- 
cal waters  a  constant  stream  of  invisible 
water  vapor  is  poured  into  the  air  from 
every  square  foot  of  surface.  When  a 
pound  of  water  thus  changes  into  vapor,  it 
absorbs  an  immense  amount  of  heat ;  ac- 
cording to  an  estimate  made  by  Tyndall, 
enough  to  raise  five  pounds  of  iron  to  the 
melting  point.  All  this  disappears  as  heat ; 
and  by  close  thinking  we  may  form  some 
idea  of  the  prodigious  drain  thus  kept  up  on 
the  heat  of  the  tropics,  which  form  as  it 
were  the  furnace  of  the  globe.  All  this 
heat  is  again  restored  to  the  atmosphere 
when  the  water  vapor  condenses.  The 
winds  carry  a  great  part  of  it  to  colder  lati- 
tudes, where  it  is  gradually  condensed  and 
falls  as  rain,  giving  up  at  the  same  time 
its  store  of  heat.  This  heat  not  only  warms 
the  atmosphere,  but  checks  condensation 
and  prevents  the  deluging  torrents  that 
27 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


would  fall  if  all  the  moisture  of  the  air  were 
to  be  precipitated  at  once.  ^ 

These  are  not  the  only  provisions  made 
for  reducing  extremes  of  temperature  and 
lessening  the  rapidity  of  change  from  hot 
to  cold,  and  from  cold  to  hot.  Sea  water 
is  always  heavier  when  cold  than  when 
warm,  because  it  contracts  down  to  its 
freezing  point.  The  cold  water  of  the 
polar  region  sinks  to  the  bottom  and  creeps 
slowly  to  tropics,  where  it  rises,  becomes 
heated,  and  then  flows  off  in  surface  cur- 
rents toward  colder  regions,  laden  with 
heat  which  it  gives  out  on  its  way.  The 
dullest  mind  can  scarcely  contemplate 
such  consummate  skill  in  contrivance  as  all 
this  exhibits  without  being  stirred  to  ad- 
miration. Does  it  not  warrant  something 
beyond  admiration  ? 

Let  us  imagine  that  a  native  of  a  warm 
climate,  who  has  never  felt  the  need  of  ar- 
tificial heat  in  a  dwelling,  is  suddenly  trans- 


^  Ifonemileof  air  saturated  with  water  at  35°  be 
cooled  to  0°  it  will  deposit  one  hundred  and  forty- 
thousand  tons  of  water. — Roscoe^  *■'■  T7'eatise  on  Chemis- 
try;'   Vol.  I.,  p.  S41. 

28 


Design 

ferred  to  one  of  our  northern  cities  in 
winter.  He  is  shown  through  a  great 
building  warmed  by  a  steam-heating  ap- 
paratus in  perfect  order.  How  he  will 
wonder  at  the  contrast  between  the  arctic 
temperature  outside  and  the  genial  summer 
within.  If  he  is  an  intelligent  man  how 
he  will  delight  to  inspect  the  great  furnaces 
and  boilers,  the  pipes  and  automatic  con- 
trivances by  which  the  desired  temperature 
is  maintained  in  every  room.  The  more 
he  becomes  bewildered  with  the  intricacy 
of  the  apparatus  the  more  he  will  admire 
the  skill  of  its  maker.  He  would  but 
lightly  esteem  the  poor  wit  of  the  facetious 
agnostic  who  should  tell  him  that  he 
''doesn't  know  that  it  has  any  maker." 

The  heating  apparatus  of  our  globe  is 
infinitely  more  wonderful  than  this ;  it 
serves  many  more  uses  than  this.  By  its 
automatic  contrivances,  which  never  get 
out  of  order,  heat  and  cold  are  made  to 
check  the  severity  of  their  own  changes. 
Does  it  not  seem  in  the  highest  degree 
probable,  to  use  no  stronger  term,  that  it 
too  had  a  maker,  and  that  it  has  something 
29 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


to  teach  us  about  him  ?  Does  not  the 
practical  reason,  the  most  reliable  judge 
within  us,  unperverted  by  quibbles,  un- 
blinded  by  manufactured  doubts,  affirm 
unhesitatingly  that  it  must  have  had  an 
Almighty  Maker? 

In  all  things  whose  origin  we  can  trace, 
skillful  contrivance,  contrivance  that  profits, 
is  at  once  accepted  as  proof 
^^  of  intelligent  design.  Es- 
pecially does  it  become  impossible  to  ac- 
cept mere  coincidence  as  an  explanation  of 
the  observed  relations  when  the  contriv- 
ance is  intricate  and  the  adaptations  many. 
In  nature  we  find  contrivance  everywhere 
skillful  beyond  human  device ;  life  depends 
on  such  nice  adaptations  and  contrivances 
innumerable.  No  valid  objection  can  be 
urged  against  continuing  here  the  sure 
process  of  reason,  here  where  most  we 
need  its  guidance.  Third  among  the  ideas 
gained  from  a  careful  study  of  nature  we 
place  intelligent  design,  and,  of  necessity, 
an  intelligent  Designer. 

It  will  be  worth  while  to  take  one  of  the 
almost  innumerable  uses  of  water  and  try 
30 


Desigii 


not  merely  to  give  it  a  correct  general 
statement,  but  to  bring  it  actually  before 
the  mind. 

Rain  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  life 
of  the  globe.  If  it  is  withheld,  industries 
languish  and  die,  the  fertile  field  is  grad- 
ually transformed  into  a  desert.  Rain 
nourishes  plant  and  animal ;  rain  supplies 
the  springs  that  overflow  to  form  streams 
and  rivers.  For  it  water  must  be  purified 
and  brought  from  the  ocean. 

A  brook  has  dried  up  because  its  source 
has  been  tampered  with  and  no  rain  has 
fallen.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  company  of 
men  have  undertaken  to  furnish  to  it  the 
needed  water  supply  during  the  dry  season. 
Along  the  shore  to  right  and  left  stretch 
the  great  distilleries  necessary  to  change 
the  salt  water  into  fresh.  From  every 
point  available  trains  are  running  night 
and  day,  carrying  the  purified  water  up  to 
be  poured  out  on  the  hills  from  which  the 
brook  formerly  gathered  its  waters.  What 
would  be  the  grand  result  of  all  this  ex- 
penditure of  millions,  this  flaming  of  fur- 
naces and  puffings  of  engines,  this  hurry 
31 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


and  worry  and  toil  of  men  ?  An  eager 
shareholder  in  this  promising  enterprise, 
standing  by  the  shore  where  once  a  gen- 
erous stream  shot  out  into  the  sea,  might 
perhaps  discover  a  tiny  driblet  of  water 
down  among  the  gravel  under  the  dry 
stones.  This  would  be  the  most  that  man 
could  accomplish ;  a  humiliating  result  for 
man,  who  does  such  great  and  wonderful 
things  that  he  sometimes  doubts  whether 
there  really  exists  any  need  for  other  god 
than  himself,  or  whether  the  power  behind 
nature  has  ever  risen  to  conscious  intelli- 
gence higher  than  the  human  mind. 

Now  imagine  one  of  the  laborers  who 
had  been  actively  employed  in  this  most 
stupendous  experiment,  namely,  '*  running 
a  brook,"  sitting  down  to  rest  himself  be- 
side the  Mississippi  River.  He  would  have 
before  him  a  stream  that  gathers  its  waters 
from  about  a  million  and  a  quarter  of  square 
miles,  and  sweeps  past  him  over  sixty  mil- 
lion cubic  feet  of  water  every  minute.  He 
could  scarcely  fail  to  ask  himself,  in  the 
light  of  his  late  laborious  experiences, 
'*  How  is  all  that  water  supplied  ?  " 
32 


Desigil 


The  answer  is  very  simple ;  water  is 
readily  changed  into  vapor,  and  this  vapor 
is  readily  condensed  to  water  again.  The 
ordinary  variations  of  the  earth's  temper- 
ature are  quite  sufficient  to  produce  these 
changes,  and  we  have  noticed  their  benefi- 
cent effect  upon  climate.  But  the  heat 
taken  away  from  hot  countries  is  not 
merely  transferred  to  colder  parts. 

While  this  is  being  done  an  even  greater 
good  is  accomplished  in  the  distribution  of 
moisture.  Silently  and  rapidly  entering 
the  water  the  sun's  rays  transform  it  from 
a  liquid  over  seven  hundred  times  heavier 
than  air  into  a  vapor  much  lighter  than 
air,  so  that  it  rises  and  floats,  and  is  carried 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind  to  colder  re- 
gions. This  vapor  cooled  becomes  liquid 
again  in  cloud  and  rain,  to  be  poured  out 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  but  especially 
on  hills  and  elevated  regions.  So  are  fed, 
not  only  the  Father  of  Waters  and  its 
mighty  rivals,  but  every  brook  that  throbs 
like  a  pulse  of  life  among  the  hills,  brings 
freshness  to  the  fields,  and  sweeps  away 
impurities  to  the  salt  sea.  It  is  difficult 
c  33 


Ideas  from  ]N[at:upe 


to  understand  how  any  man  can  get  a  real 
conception  of  these  things  and  not  feel 
compelled  to  admit  that  there  must  be 
somewhere  in  the  universe,  not  only  power 
greater  than  his,  but  benevolent  intelli- 
gence higher  than  his,  an  intelligence  that 
wills,  purposes,  performs.  These  are  at- 
tributes of  personality. 

Not  only  does  water  possess  in  an  emi- 
nent degree  certain  properties  which  other 
substances  exhibit  in  less  degree,  but  in 
one  marked  case  it  is  an  exception  to  a 
general  law  of  nature.  Through  four  de- 
grees above  its  freezing  point  it  expands 
as  it  cools,  instead  of  contracting  as  other 
liquids  do.  The  importance  and  signifi- 
cance of  this  exception  is  dwelt  on  by  our 
best  writers  on  physical  science,  even  in 
works  intended  to  be  used  merely  as  text- 
books. 

Professor  Cooke,  of  Harvard,  calls  it  "a 
special  adaptation  in  the  plan  of  nature."^ 

.      ,  Sir    Henry    Roscoe,    in    his 

Testiiriony    ^^^^^    ^^^^    ^^    chemistry, 

says  :  "  Although  the  amount  of  contrac- 

^  "Chemical  Physics,"  p.  520. 
34 


Design 


tion  on  heating  water  from  o°  to  4°  is  but 
small,  yet  it  exerts  a  most  important  influ- 
ence upon  the  economy  of  nature.  If  it 
were  not  for  this  apparently  unimportant 
property,  our  climate  would  be  perfectly 
Arctic,  and  Europe  would  in  all  probability 
be  as  uninhabitable  as  Melville  Island.  .  . 
This  cooling  (of  water  exposed  to  a  freez- 
ing atmosphere)  goes  on  till  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  top  layer  of  water  sinks  to  0°, 
after  which  a  crust  of  ice  is  formed ;  and 
if  the  mass  of  water  be  sufficiently  large, 
the  temperature  of  the  water  at  the  bot- 
tom is  never  reduced  below  4°.  In  nature, 
precisely  the  same  phenomenon  occurs  in 
the  freezing  of  lakes  and  rivers  ;  the  sur- 
face water  is  gradually  cooled  by  cold 
winds,  and  thus  becoming  heavier,  sinks, 
whilst  lighter  and  warmer  water  rises  to 
supply  its  place.  This  goes  on  till  the 
temperature  of  the  whole  mass  is  reduced 
to  4°,  after  which  the  surface  water  never 
sinks,  however  much  it  may  be  cooled,  as 
it  is  always  lighter  than  the  deeper  water 
at  4°.  Hence  ice  is  formed  only  at  the 
top,  the  mass  of  water  retaining  the  tem- 
35 


Ideas  from  ptature 


perature  of  4°.  Had  water  become  heav- 
ier as  it  cooled  down  to  the  freezing  point 
.  .  .  our  lakes  and  rivers  would  be  con- 
verted into  solid  masses  of  ice,  which  the 
summer's  warmth  would  be  quite  insuf- 
ficient thoroughly  to  melt ;  and  hence  the 
climate  of  our  now  temperate  zone  might 
approach  in  severity  that  of  the  Arctic 
regions !  "^ 

The  fact  that  sea  water  follows  the  gen- 
eral law,  contracting  as  it  approaches  its 
freezing  point,  which  is  below  0°,  very 
strongly  emphasizes  the  significance  of  the 
exception  in  the  case  of  fresh  water. 

Thus  physical  science  supplies  us  with 
evidences  of  design  in  nature,  which 
strengthen  as  our  knowledge  of  nature 
becomes  wider  and  deeper.  Biological 
science  also  furnishes  evidence  of  a  pecu- 
liarly forcible  kind  and  pointing  to  the 
same  conclusion.  Wise  and  benevolent 
design  implies  the  existence  of  a  wise  and 
benevolent  Designer.  This  argument  from 
design    is  an   old   one ;  we  find  it  in  the 

1  "Treatise  on  Chemistry,"  Vol.    I.,  pp.   224,   225. 
Repeated  in  new  ed.,  p. 271. 

36 


Desigri 

writings  of  the  Hebrew  prophet,  in  the 
^^Memorabilia  '  of  the  Greek  sage.  It  is 
stated  with  great  ability  in  the  '<  Natural 
Theology"  of  Paley  and  in  the  '^ Bridge- 
water  Treatises." 

Our  knowledge  of  nature  has  greatly 
increased  since  Paley's  time,  but  this  in- 
crease has  only  changed  the  form  of  the 
design  argument,  not  lessened  its  force  nor 
modified  its  essence.  This,  though  hastily 
questioned  by  some,  has  been  fully  granted 
by  leading  men  of  science.  The  human 
eye  or  ear  is  still  a  marvel  of  design,  no 
matter  how  long  it  was  in  fashioning,  or 
what  means  were  used  to  bring  it  to  its 
present  form.  The  skillful  adaptation  of 
means  to  an  end  is  the  very  feature  by 
which  we  recognize  intelligent  design.  If 
the  means  employed  turn  out  to  be  more 
wonderful  than  anything  man  could  con- 
ceive, the  lesson  of  purpose  is  not  thereby 
discredited,  but  approved  and  extended. 

Let  us  hear  what  some  of  the  foremost 

scholars  of  our  own  day,  standing  in  the 

van  of  science  and  taking  an  active  part  in 

the  battle  of  belief,  say  of  the  validity  of 

37 


Ideas  from  ]\[atiure 


this  argument.  I  select  two,  the  first  re- 
ferring to  the  evidences  furnished  by 
physical  science ;  the  second,  to  those  from 
biology. 

Professor  Cooke,  of  Harvard,  when  dis- 
cussing these  same  properties  of  matter  to 
which  we  have  just  referred,  says:  "I  can- 
not conceive  of  stronger  evidence  of  de- 
sign than  this;  and  if  these  facts  do  not 
prove  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  Crea- 
tor, then  all  nature  is  a  deception  and  our 
own  faculties  a  lie."  ^ 

Sir  William  Thomson  (now  Lord  Kel- 
vin), in  an  inaugural  address  before  the 
British  Association,  says :  ''  I  feel  pro- 
foundly convinced  that  the  argument  of 
design  has  been  greatly  too  much  lost  sight 
of  in  our  recent  zoological  speculations. 
Reaction  against  the  frivolities  of  teleology, 
such  as  are  to  be  found,  not  rarely,  in  the 
notes  of  the  learned  commentators  on  Pa- 
ley's  '  Natural  Theology,'  has,  I  believe, 
had  a  temporary  effect  in  turning  attention 
from  the  solid  and  irrefragable  argument 
so  well  put  forward  in  that  excellent  old 

^  "Religion  and  Chemistry,"  p.  155. 

38 


Desigii 

book.  But  overwhelmingly  strong  proofs 
of  intelligent  and  benevolent  design  lie  all 
around  us,  and  if  ever  perplexities,  whether 
metaphysical  or  scientific,  turn  us  away 
from  these  for  a  time,  they  come  back  upon 
us  with  irresistible  force,  teaching  us  that 
all  living  beings  depend  on  one  ever-acting 
Creator  and  Ruler." 

This  is  clear  and  outspoken.  It  was 
addressed  to  the  most  august  body  of  sci- 
entists in  the  realm,  men  familiar  with  all 
the  objections  that  have  been  urged  against 
the  old  argument. 

It  is  often  instructive  to  observe  how 
men  of  genius,  of  very  different  training 
and  endowment,  regard  the  same  great 
question.  Even  John  Stuart  Mill,  edu- 
cated as  nearly  as  possible  in  a  religious 
vacuum,  felt  constrained  to  say  :  ''  It  must 
be  allowed  that  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  the  adaptations  in  nature  afford 
a  large  balance  of  probability  in  favor  of 
creation    by  intelligence."  ^ 

Prof.  Huxley  with  equal  frankness  ac- 
knowledges the  cogency  of  the  argument 

1  "  Essay  on  Religion." 
39 


Ideas  from  plature 


from  design.  He  says  :  "  The  teleological 
and  the  mechanical  views  of  nature  are  not 
necessarily  mutually  exclusive.  On  the 
contrary,  the  more  purely  a  mechanist  the 
speculator  is,  the  more  firmly  does  he  as- 
sume a  primordial  molecular  arrangement 
of  which  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe 
are  the  consequences,  and  the  more  com- 
pletely is  he  thereby  at  the  mercy  of  the 
teleologist,  who  can  always  defy  him  to 
disprove  that  this  primordial  molecular  ar- 
rangement was  intended  to  evolve  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  universe."  ^ 

Dr.  Martineau  makes  a  place  for  the 
argument  from  design  in  his  philosophic 
''  Study  of  Religion,"  with  the  following 
comment  :  *<  Advanced  thought,  also,  hke 
dress  and  manners,  is  not  without  its  fash- 
ions and  its  fops ;  and  many  a  scientific 
sciolist,  who  would  bear  himself  comme  il 
fant  toward  such  questionable  deceivers  as 
'  Final  Causes,'  now  thinks  it  necessary 
to  have  his  fling  at  Paley  and  the  'Bridge- 
water  Treatises.'  He  has  it  on  best  au- 
thority  that    Darwin    has    exposed    their 

1  "Life  of  Darwin,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  555. 
40 


Desigri 


imposture,  and  he  must  show  that  he  is 
not  going  to  fall  into  their  trap.  It  is 
probable  that,  of  those  who  speak  in  this 
tone,  nine  out  of  ten  have  never  read  the 
books  with  which  they  deal  so  flippantly ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  the  tenth  is  incompe- 
tent to  grasp  the  essentials  of  an  argument, 
while  letting  its  separable  accidents  fall 
away.  .  .  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
Paley  would  have  welcomed  the  new  theory 
of  organic  life  upon  the  globe,  as  a  mag- 
nificent expansion  of  his  idea." 

Before  we  leave  this  subject,  the  argu> 
ment  from  design  for  the  existence  of  a 
Creator,  let  us  look  at  it  in  another  light. 

In  order  to  understand  to  any  adequate 
degree  the  perfection  of  adaptation,  we 
must  study,  as  thoroughly  as  we  may,  a 
single  case.  So  instead  of  seeking  for 
new  materials  I  have  drawn  illustrations 
from  the  things  most  familiar.  Others  are 
at  hand  and  biology  furnishes  many  more. 
The  life  history  of  the  plant,  the  fertiliza- 
tion of  the  flower,  the  habits  of  insects, 
the  adaptation  of  the  organs  of  animals  to 
the  requirements  of  life  on  land,  in  air 
41 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


and  sea,  the  minute  correspondence  of 
organ  and  function  to  environment,  all  sug- 
gest as  the  most  reasonable  explanation  of 
nature  the  intentional  action  of  an  intel- 
ligent being.  It  is  difificult  indeed  for  the 
unbiased  mind  to  consider  these  things  and 
not  conclude  that  they  are  as  they  are 
because  some  one  has  made  them  so,  and 
because  he  intended  them  so  to  be. 

But  to  realize  how  certainly  this  adapta- 
tion can  only  be  the  result  of  intelligent 
design,  it  is  well  to  set  in  array  before  our 
eyes  the  great  number  and  variety  of  parts 
and  the  many  ways  in  which  their  indi- 
vidual functions,  seemingly  separate,  are 
made  to  work  together  harmoniously  to  the 
accomplishment  of  a  single  end. 

Consider  for  a  moment  what  is  implied  in 
normal  human  life,  our  ordinary  daily  life. 

Life  as  we  have  it  is  possible  only  in  a 
very  narrow  area  of  the  solar   system  as 

known  to  us.     We  are  taught 

Conditions   ^,    ^     r         -i      u        4-u 

that  a  few  miles  beneath  us 

the  heat  is  sufficient  to  melt 

iron  ;  not  far   above   our  heads   is  a  cold 

sufficient  to  freeze  mercury.      Human  life 
42 


Design 

and  the  things  necessary  for  its  mainte- 
nance have  been  gathered  together  in  this 
very  small  section  of  the  known  universe. 

We  think  of  the  orderly  succession  of 
periods  of  light  and  darkness,  of  the 
changing  sky  and  varying  seasons,  all 
adapted  to  the  physical  and  mental  endow- 
ments of  man,  of  atmosphere  and  soil, 
plant  and  animal,  and  we  are  sent  back  for 
causes  to  all  that  astronomy  has  taught  of 
the  delicate  adjustment  of  suns  and  sys- 
tems, so  that  seedtime  and  harvest,  and 
cold  and  heat,  and  summer  and  winter, 
and  day  and  night  should  not  cease ;  to 
all  that  geology  has  made  known  of  the 
progressive  changes  through  which  the 
world  has  been  brought  to  its  present  con- 
dition. 

We  think  of  the  body  and  its  environ- 
ment, of  the  eye  delicately  adjusted  for 
light,  of  light  bringing  its  message  from 
near  or  far  in  such  form  that  the  eye,  and 
the  eye  alone,  can  interpret  it,  of  the  ear 
formed  so  fairily  for  sounds  and  harmonies 
made  for  it. 

We  think  of  the  parts  of  the  body,  of 
43 


Ideas  from  jiature 


their  separate  functions,  their  mutual  rela- 
tions, of  the  streaming  currents  of  the 
blood,  of  bone  and  muscle  and  tendon,  of 
nerve  and  brain,  each  a  unit  in  its  individual 
structure,  each  a  part  contributing  to  give 
the  whole  completeness. 

We  may  not  stop  here.  We  see  that 
the  body  as  a  whole  is  not  made  for  itself 
as  an  end,  but  is  fitted  to  be  the  instru- 
ment of  mind. 

We  think  of  that  mind  holding  the  mys- 
tery of  our  own  personality,  holding  the 
potencies  that  determine  the  issues  of  time 
and  eternity,  self-conscious,  curious  to  in- 
quire into  the  meaning  of  things,  impelled 
to  look  beyond  the  seen  and  find  the  cause 
of  things,  eager  to  grasp  reality,  yet  in 
tutelage  now  amid  these  earthly  phe- 
nomena. 

We  think  of  our  advanced  social  condi- 
tion worked  out  by  man  truly,  but  only 
possible  because  of  ordinances  established 
in  the  constitution  of  existence,  with  which 
man  had  no  more  to  do  than  with  the 
origin  of  gravitation. 

Yet  all  these  have  been  brought  together 
44 


Design 

and  co-ordinated  in  that  thin  belt  of  space 
which  surrounds  our  planet.  If  this  co- 
ordination is  an  accident,  the  result  of  for- 
tuitous causes,  then  that  accident  is  the 
most  astounding  miracle  of  chance  man 
was  ever  called  upon  to  believe.  Such 
harmony  culminating  in  intelligence  can- 
not be  the  result  of  blind  force. 

If  any  one,  in  view  of  such  considera- 
tions as  these,  is  haunted  by  the  so-called 
difficulties  of  belief  in  a  Creator,  I  would 
ask  him  if  he  has  ever  seriously  considered 
how  much  more  formidable  are  the  diffi- 
culties of  unbelief. 

In  brief  then  the  argument  from  design 
is  this :  The  study  of  nature  shows  us,  in 
the  interaction  of  its  materials  and  forces, 
in  the  life  of  plant  and  animal  and  man, 
contrivances  so  numerous,  so  elaborate,  so 
refined  in  detail,  yet  all  working  toward  a 
common  end,  that  reason  is  compelled  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  world  is  the  work 
of  an  intelligent  Creator.  If  we  reject  this 
explanation  we  have  no  other,  because  to 
reject  this  is  to  stultify  the  reason  that  has 
been  given  us  as  our  guide. 
45 


II 

OBJECTIONS 


Can  you  doubt  whether  these  things,  wrought 
with  such  forethought,  are  the  works  of  chance, 

or  of  intelligence? 

— Socrates 


II 


Every  great  truth  that  bears  upon  the 
highest  interests  of  man  has  found  opposers  ; 
and  we  need  not  wonder  that  there  are 
those  who  question  the  vaUdity  of  the  ar- 
gument from  design.  Truth  costs  noth- 
ing ;  not  so  behef.  Truth  is  given  away ; 
behef  rests  on  conviction  and  must  be  ac- 
quired, often  only  after  a  long  struggle 
against  inclination,  prejudice,  fashion,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  age. 

It  is  not  the  least  valuable  part  of  the 
discipline  of  life  that  each  of  us  must  find 
out  for  himself  what  is  worthy  of  belief 
amid  hostile  views,  must  contend  for  his 
creed,  if  he  would  have  a  good  one,  as  the 
warrior  of  old  fought  for  the  spurs  of 
knighthood,  and  with  more  than  one  vigil- 
at-arms. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  we  see  in 
things  what  we  want  to  see.  Let  us  ap- 
propriate the  small  fraction  of  truth  this 
D  49 


Ideas  from  jlature 


saying  contains,  and  make  sure  that  what 
we  want  to  see  is  the  truth  of  things. 

I  do  not  think  the  search  for  truth  is 
so  difficult  an  enterprise  as  it  is  often  rep- 
resented, if  there  is  first  a  loyal  purpose. 
Of  opposing  teachings  offered  us,  many 
may  be  recognized  at  sight  as  worthless, 
and  thrown  away;  others,  by  comparison, 
shown  to  be  inferior,  may  be  laid  aside. 
Doctrines  ''with  some  truth  in  them"  are 
not  suitable  ;  gilded  brass  is  not  the  kind  of 
material  for  character  building  ;  we  want 
the  pure  gold  of  truth  at  any  cost,  and  we 
may  find  it.  Some  teachings  are  good,  that 
is,  true  ;  others  are  bad,  they  tend  down- 
ward, they  relax  the  moral  muscle,  they 
dull  the  nice  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  right, 
they  are  false.  Doubt  as  you  will  with  that 
scientific  doubt  that  leads  to  a  careful 
examination  of  the  foundations  of  belief, 
but  do  not  let  any  one  cram  you  with  the 
manufactured  difficulties  and  objections  of 
amateur  skepticism,  else  you  may  find,  by 
and  by,  that  you  do  not  know  how  to  be 
honest  with  yourself. 

Let  us  consider  now  some  of  the  most 
50 


Objections 


formidable  objections  that  arise  in  our  own 
minds  or  are  urged  by  others  against  the 
argument  from  design. 

The  first  is  that  the  evidence  is  but  par- 
tial.    We  can  discover  con-     . 

^,  .        ,    .    The  Evidence 
trivance  m  some  thmgs,  but 

n      T  Partial 

not  ni  all.     In  some  cases 

the  appointments  of  nature  operate  unfav- 
orably, so  far  as  we  can  judge. 
.  The  answer  to  this  is  that  we  are  unable 
to  grasp  the  whole  scheme  and  meaning  of 
human  existence  in  all  its  parts.  If  we  can 
discover  helpful  contrivance  in  some  things, 
especially  those  of  which  we  know  most, 
and  which  are  most  intimately  concerned 
in  our  own  well-being,  as  we  do  in  the 
structure  of  our  own  bodies  and  the  liberal 
provision  made  for  our  happiness  in  earth, 
air,  water,  food,  we  have  positive  evidence 
of  benevolent  design  which  no  amount  of 
negative  evidence  can  invalidate. 

In  reference  to  the  seemingly  more 
weighty  form  of  the  objection  that,  look- 
ing from  our  own  standpoint,  we  are  obliged 
to  regard  some  of  the  results  of  the  work- 
ing of  natural  law  as  hostile,  there  is  a  still 
51 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


more  weighty  answer.  Man  is  not  intended 
to  be  a  mere  nursling  waited  on  by  the 
obedient  processes  of  nature.  So,  he  would 
always  continue  a  baby ;  he  was  intended 
to  become,  in  reality  as  well  as  in  name,  a 
man.  Difficulties,  obstacles,  trials,  are  ap- 
pointed him  in  order  to  make  a  man  of 
him — if  possible.  There  is  nothing  in 
which  the  evidence  of  design  is  more  satis- 
factory than  in  the  discipline  of  hardship 
appointed  us  in  life,  and  which  alone  can 
transform  the  raw  recruit  into  a  good 
soldier. 

The  argument  does  not  affirm  that  the 
works  of  nature  are  typically  perfect.  A 
wise  man  of  the  olden  time  has  given  us 
as  a  result  of  his  observation,  "  I  have  seen 
an  end  of  all  perfection."  We  find  admir- 
able contrivance,  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  per- 
fect plan ;  but  in  everything  that  relates  to 
man,  perhaps  in  everything  for  man's  sake, 
there  is  a  falling  short  of  the  perfect  in 
execution.  Man  is  out  of  harmony  with 
his  environment ;  he  is  a  destroyer,  a  pol- 
luter, a  discord.  For  him  the  whole  crea- 
tion groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain.  After 
52 


Objections 


so  many  centuries  of  research  the  best 
explanation  we  have  of  this  astonishing 
and  humiliating  fact  is  the  simple  story 
told  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis.  The 
course  of  history,  as  well  as  our  individual 
experience,  has  so  uniformly  sustained  the 
fact  of  a  "fall"  that  opponents  of  the 
grand  old  book  have  been  unable  to  find 
any  better  argument  against  it  than  ridi- 
cule. In  view  of  all  this,  we  need  not 
wonder  if  man  sometimes  finds  the  appoint- 
ments of  nature  against  him,  and  himself 
compelled,  if  he  would  recover  his  true 
standing,  to  undergo  a  discipline  that  is 
painful. 

No  teaching  affords  an  explanation  of 
the  mystery  of  evil,  but  we  should  not  miss 
the  point  of  that  ancient  parable  which  re- 
fers its  earthly  beginning  to  a  being,  pos- 
sessed of  a  certain  intelligence  and  a 
certain  freedom,  who  willed  contrary  to 
the  appointed  conditions  of  his  being,  so 
linking  suffering  with  sin.  The  patriarch 
of  Uz  was  given  a  course  of  object-lessons 
from  nature  to  convince  him  that  God 
knows  best ;  for  us,  to  assure  us  that  God 
53 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


loves  best,  there  is  the  Cross  ;  yet  neither 
answer  solves  this  darkest  of  earth's  enig- 
mas, though  both  emphasize  the  terrible 
reality  of  evil.  However,  the  mystery  is 
not  wholly  dark.  ''  Made  perfect  through 
suffering"  is  anything  but  an  unmeaning 
term  to  those  who  have  learned  how  the 
soul  refines  and  develops  its  noblest  powers ; 
and,  much  as  we  must  regret  the  existence 
of  moral  evil,  we  know  that  character  grows 
strong  in  proportion  as  we  resist  tempta- 
tion. The  purpose  of  trial  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  manhood  is  not  difficult  to  under- 
stand.^ 

A  second  objection  is  more  philosophical: 
Why  should  an  infinite  Creator  make  use 

.  of  contrivance.?    If  he  wishes 

Use  of  ,   .  .  ^.        r     T      ^ 

certam  varieties  of  climate, 

]VIechanism   ^^^  ^^^  ^^^^.^  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^ 

of  endowing  one  or  more  substances  ex- 
ceptionally, and  using  them  to  construct  a 

1  It  is  also  a  matter  of  fact  that  if  Christianity  is  truth- 
ful in  representing  this  world  as  a  school  of  moral 
probation,  we  cannot  conceive  a  system  better  adapted 
to  this  end  than  is  the  world,  or  a  better  schoolmaster 
than  Christianity. — Romanes,  ^^  Thoughts  on  Keiigion,'^ 
p.  isi, 

54 


Objections 


vast  circulating  system  in  sea  and  air  to 
bring  about  the  same  result?  Why  not 
endow  a  simple  membrane  with  the  faculty 
of  sight,  instead  of  forming  the  eye  with 
its  admirable  but  complicated  and  delicate 
structure  ? 

To  this  I  offer  the  following  answer. 
Man  is  designed  to  become  a  worker ;  for 
his  education  a  long  period  of  growth,  and 
surroundings  that  incite  to  and  reward  ac- 
tivity have  been  afforded.  The  substances 
furnished  in  nature  are  his  raw  material ; 
he  can  acquire  skill  to  use  them.  The 
forces  of  nature  are  his  slaves;  he  can  find 
out  how  to  slip  their  necks  beneath  his 
yoke.  The  laws  of  nature  furnish  the 
sure  foundation  on  which  he  may  build  ; 
contrivances  in  nature  supply  models  for 
his  imitation.  Man's  Creator  is  a  worker 
as  well,  and  in  the  constitution  he  has 
given  to  nature  has  put  honor  upon  his 
laws  by  using  them,  thus  surrounding 
man  with  lessons  to  stimulate  his  powers 
of  invention  and  discovery,  and  to  wit- 
ness to  the  character  and  purpose  of  his 
Maker. 

55 


Ideas  from  JNlatuFe 


A  third  objection  is,  tHat  the  adaptations 

^  .     .,  found   in   nature   and    inter- 

Gomcidence 

^.      ,     .  preted  as  evidences  of  wise 

Simulating  ,    .  ..... 

,  design  may  be  simply  comci- 

^  dences,   the    result    of    acci- 

dent, not  purpose. 

This  can  never  be  very  formidable  ;  it  is 
of  the  order  of  objections  men  raise  when 
they  wish  to  escape  a  conclusion  they  sus- 
pect to  be  true.  Such  curious  harmony  of 
events  without  purpose  does  occur  occa- 
sionally in  the  experience  of  every  one,  and 
may  sometimes  be  invested  by  the  super- 
stitious with  undue  importance ;  but  they 
are  too  rare,  too  trivial,  too  transient,  too 
ambiguous,  to  be  classed  along  with  such 
significant  facts  as  the  anomalous  expan- 
sion of  water,  the  fitness  of  the  bird's 
wing  for  flying,  the  man's  hand  for  grasp- 
ing, and  others  in  almost  endless  array. 

Fourth :    it    may    be    thought   that    the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  which  occupies  such 
a  prominent  position  in  bio- 
logical speculation,  furnishes 
an  objection  to  the  argument  from  design 
by  rendering  it  unnecessary. 
56 


Objections 


This  theory  is  an  attempt  to  explain  the 
complexity  of  living  things  now  on  the 
earth  by  descent,  with  variation,  from  one 
or  at  least  only  a  few  primitive  forms.  It 
relies  on  known  facts,  (a)  That  the  off- 
spring resembles  the  parent — heredity; 
{b)  that  this  resemblance  is  not  rigid — 
variation ;  {c)  that  new  characteristics  ac- 
quired by  variation  may  be  preserved  by 
inheritance ;  {d)  that  if  this  process  could 
continue  in  a  definite  line  for  a  sufficient 
length  of  time,  differences  might  at  last 
be  produced  in  animals  descended  from 
the  same  ancestors  such  as  those  which 
now  distinguish  different  species. 

Clearly  enough  there  is  evolution  in 
nature.  The  most  superficial  observer 
can  scarcely  fail  to  notice,  "First  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear."  Whoever  will  set  himself  to 
find  out  how  the  seed  cast  into  the  earth 
springs  up,  will  find  more  evolution ;  and 
yet  more  if  he  follow  the  transformations 
through  which  the  germ  becomes  the  ani- 
mal. To  extend  the  process  and  make  it 
account  for  the  origin  of  all  the  differences 
57 


Ideas  from  jlature 


that  distinguish  the  various  species  of 
plants  and  animals  was  an  idea  likely  to 
occur  to  some  speculative  mind;  and  it 
did  occur  long  ago.  But  the  difficult  part 
of  the  work  remained,  to  explain  the  ex- 
planation, to  assign  a  sufficient  natural 
cause  to  evolution.  The  eager  discussions 
of  the  day  show  us  that  this  has  not  yet 
been  done  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  natural- 
ists. 

Mr.  Darwin's  name  is  associated  with 
an  explanation  which,  if  it  does  not  assign 
a  sufficient  cause,  is  believed  by  many  to 
point  out  a  true  cause.  He  noted  the  suc- 
cess that  attends  the  breeder's  efforts  to 
produce  new  varieties  of  animals  possess- 
ing valuable  qualities,  speed,  strength, 
beauty, — a  process  which  may  be  called 
artificial  selection, — and  he  reasoned  that 
similar  changes  might  be  produced  by 
natural  agencies  and  result  in  specific  dif- 
ferences. This  is  natural  selection;  the 
breeder's  office  is  performed  by  that  thing 
we  all  hate  and  fear  so  much,  yet  which, 
curiously  enough,  seems  to  be  the  uniform 
attendant  of  all  earthly  progress,  want. 
58 


Objections 


Life's  family  soon  becomes  so  large  that 
there  is  not  enough  food  to  go  around, 
and  there  results  from  this  awkward  state 
of  affairs  that  struggle  for  existence  with 
which  we  are  all  so  sadly  familiar.  In 
this  the  fortunate  possessor  of  a  helpful 
variation,  or  a  ready  adaptability  to  new 
conditions,  is  victor.  There  is  thus 
brought  about,  by  this  survival  of  the 
fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  what 
we  now  see,  a  great  variety  of  plants  and 
animals  nicely  adjusted  to  the  conditions 
of  the  world  in  which  they  live,  their  e7i- 
virontnent. 

Whether  or  not  the  different  factors 
already  proposed,  natural  selection,  sexual 
selection,  the  reaction  of  organism  and 
environment,  strain  produced  by  effort, 
any  or  all  of  them,  afford  a  sufficient  me- 
chanical explanation  of  the  mechanics  of 
evolution  is  a  scientific  question,  to  be 
answered  by  scientific  investigation.  If 
such  explanation  has  not  yet  been  found 
it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  it  will  be ; 
but  when  found  it  will  reveal  merely  me- 
chanical processes, — including  physical  and 
59 


Ideas  from  ]^at:iire 


chemical, — furnishing  more  adaptations  to 
enforce  the  argument  from  design. 

Granting  that  there  has  been  evolution 
in  nature,  we  notice  that  it  emphasizes 
certain  considerations  which  argue  strongly 
for  belief  in  a  Creator. 

1.  As  to  the  origin  of  life.      Evolution 
substitutes    a    natural    process,    modifica- 
tion of  a  living  organism,  for 

Gonclusions   ^^^^.^^  creative  acts   in  the 

rroni  origin  of  species — using  the 

Evolution    ^  .  •  1 

term  origm  very  much  as  we 

do  when  we  speak  of  the  origin  of  a  city. 
Of  the  origin  of  the  first  living  being  it 
can  tell  us  nothing ;  it  is  obliged  to  assume 
it.  Evolution  is  not  a  substitute  for  crea- 
tion ;  if  things  were  evolved,  that  does 
not  imply  that  they  evolved  themselves, 
much  less  that  they  evolved  themselves 
out  of  nothing. 

2.  The  cause  of  the  adaptation  of  the 
living  being  to  its  surroundings.  Life  is 
possible  only  under  certain  definite  condi- 
tions, to  which  the  organism  must  be 
nicely  adjusted.     Evolution  is  obliged   to 

assume  these  adaptations  as  existing. 
60 


Objections 


3.  The  occurrence  of  favorable  varia- 
tions. Granting  that  natural  selection  ac- 
counts for  the  preservation  of  such  varia- 
tions as  are  useful  to  the  being  in  its 
struggle  for  existence,  it  can  give  us  no 
aid  in  understanding  how  these  helpful 
variations  are  produced.  It  must  assume 
a  tendency  to  fitness  operating  in  nature. 

4.  The  continuous  progress  of  evolu- 
tion along  definite  lines,  as  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  skeleton,  the  teeth,  or  the  eye 
of  the  higher  animals.  The  insufficiency 
of  evolution  without  the  guidance  of  in- 
telligence is  very  evident  here. 

5.  The  progressive  harmonious  varia- 
tion of  the  different  parts  of  animals 
which  naturalists  describe  as  necessary  to 
the  production  of  new  species.  Mr.  Dar- 
win speaks  of  the  whole  organism  as  being 
"so  tied  together  during  its  growth  and 
development,  that  when  slight  variations 
in  any  one  part  occur,  and  are  accumulated 
through  natural  selection,  other  parts  be- 
come modified."  Accidental  variation  can- 
not account  for  harmonious  variation. 

All  these  limitations  of  the  theory  have 
61 


Ideas  from  plature 


been  pointed  out  by  its  leading  expound- 
ers. It  gives  us  a  magnificent  extension 
of  our  view  of  the  order  of  the  world,  but 
it  cannot  even  attempt  to  account  for  the 
origin  and  maintenance  of  that  order.  It 
modifies  our  conception  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  adaptations  seen  in  nature  were 
produced,  but  only  renders  it  more  reason- 
able to  regard  them  as  the  result  of  intel- 
ligent purpose. 

The  evolutionary  process  may  even  be 
carried  back  and  applied  to  the  original 
material  of  nature.  We  have  only  to  assume 
that  during  the  cooling  of  the  nebula  from 
which  our  solar  system  was  formed,  differ- 
ent associations  of  matter  took  place ;  those 
best  fitted  to  the  conditions  remained ;  the 
unfit  dissolved  to  give  place  to  the  fit. 
Thus  our  world  and  all  that  it  contains, 
living  and  not  living,  was  developed  by 
natural  processes,  acting  under  one  great 
law,  from  a  material  relatively  simple  and 
formless. 

Evolution  is  a  grand  hypothesis,  in  ac- 
cord with  much  that  we  know,  and  holds 
the  field  as  the  most  probable  conception, 


62 


Objections 


in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  of 
the  method  of  the  Creator.  But  it  is 
merely  a  method,  it  is  neither  a  cause  nor  a 
force,  and  itself  requires  to  be  accounted  for. 

Granting  the  existence  of  matter  and 
energy,  no  imaginable  interaction  of  the 
two  would  produce  any  tendency  to  fitness, 
unless  conditioned  by  an  intelligence  rec- 
ognizing what  is  fit.  An  infinite  number 
of  attempts  under  the  guidance  of  fortuity 
would  only  lead  to  chaos  worse  confounded, 
not  to  the  astonishing  complexity  and 
harmony  of  adaptations  which  nature 
everywhere  reveals.  There  would  be  no 
tendency  through  immeasurable  ages  to 
the  conditions  that  fit  water  for  its  uses  or 
the  eye  or  the  ear  to  its  functions,  unless 
behind  the  operations  of  nature  acted  One 
who  worketh  all  things  after  the  counsel 
of  his  will.^ 

But  here  the  skeptical  philosopher  may 
startle  us  with  a  fifth  objec-        << 
tion  that  is  at  least  intended  ,^ 

to  be  fatal.     The  argument  ^^ 

from    skillful    contrivance    to    intelligent 
1  "Relics  of  Primeval  Life,"  Dawson,  p.  323. 

63 


Ideas  from  plature 


design  is  legitimate,  he  may  tell  us,  only 
so  long  as  it  confines  itself  to  human  work- 
manship ;  we  may  not  extend  it  beyond. 

This  entirely  misstates  the  argument, 
which  is  not  a  mere  reasoning  from  human 
works  to  divine,  by  analogy/  What  is 
claimed  is  this,  that  wherever  we  behold 
useful  results  evidently  produced  by  skill- 
fully contrived  and  nicely  adapted  means 
which  our  intelligence  can  appreciate, 
there  we  must  recognize  the  design  of  an 
intelligent  being.  It  is  the  imperative 
demand  of  reason ;  to  refuse  it  would  be 
to  turn  the  light  that  is  in  us  to  darkness. 

Another  last  objection,  really  breathing 

slaughter,  comes  not  from  a  philosopher, 

but  from  a  popular  exponent 

Causation    ^^  ^^^^^^^  infidelity.     It  is 

this  :  If  a  watch  must  have  had  a  maker 

^  The  design  argument  is  not  drawn  from  mere  re- 
semblance in  nature  to  the  work  of  human  intelligence, 
but  from  the  special  character  of  this  resemblance.  .  . 
The  argument,  therefore,  is  not  one  of  mere  analogy. 
As  mere  analogy  it  has  its  weight,  but  it  is  more  than 
analogy.  It  surpasses  analogy  exactly  as  induction  sur- 
passes it.  It  is  an  inductive  argument. — J.  S.  Mill^ 
'■''Essays  on  Religion^  Theism,^^  pp.  i6g,  170. 
64 


Objections 


because  it  exhibits  skill  and  the  adaptation 
of  many  parts  all  working  together  to  one 
end,  and  man,  who  made  the  watch,  and 
exhibits  in  his  nature  these  same  qualities 
to  a  much  greater  degree,  must  have  had 
a  Maker,  then,  for  a  still  stronger  reason 
the  Maker  of  man,  so  much  more  wonder- 
ful than  man,  must  also  have  a  maker  ;  and 
the  argument  from  design  is  reduced  to  an 
absurdity.  Absurdity  enough  there  is,  not 
in  the  argument  from  design,  but  in  the 
reckless  confusion  of  thought  and  misstate- 
ments contained  in  the  objection. 

Of  the  existence  of  anything  that  now 
is,  two — and  only  two — explanations  are 
possible.  It  may  have  existed  always, 
that  is,  may  be  eternally  existent,  which 
means  self-existent ;  or  it  may  have  come 
into  existence,  in  which  case  it  must  have 
been  brought  into  existence,  for  the  very 
sufficient  reason  that  from  nothing  nothing 
can  arise.  The  things  whose  history  is 
hmited  within  the  time-duration  of  our 
globe  are  events,  things  which  have  begun 
to  be,  and  of  these  we  speak  when  we 
say  ^' every  event  must  have  a  sufficient 
E  65 


Ideas  from  J^ature 


cause."  But  it  is  dire  bungling  to  say 
that  everything  that  exists  must  have  had 
a  cause,  for  the  first  cause,  the  cause  of  all, 
must  have  been  uncaused.  It  is  merely  a 
modification  of  this  conception,  not  another 
explanation,  to  speak  of  cause  behind  cause 
in  infinite  series,  man's  effort  to  divide 
eternity  into  time-stages,  so  that  he  may 
reach  what  intelligence  demands,  the  first 
Cause,  the  supreme  reality. 

Evidently,  if  we  could  fix  upon  a  point 
in  the  past  where  it  might  be  truly  said 
that  nothing  existed,  then  nothing  could 
now  exist,  for  out  of  nothing  nothing  can 
arise.  The  present  existence  of  anything 
necessitates  the  eternal  existence  of  some- 
thing. But  we  do  reach  a  point  at  which 
we  are  compelled  to  say,  ''Beyond  this 
nothing  existed  save  the  Eternal." 

Thus  our  own  existence  and  the  exist- 
ence of  the  world  about  us  proves  that 
something  must  have  existed  always,  the 
Cause  of  all,  uncaused.  Science,  as  well 
as  religion,  answering  the  cry  of  the  hu- 
man   heart,    authorize    us    to    clothe  that 

cause  with  the  attributes  of  personality. 
66 


Objections 


That  question  of  the  child,  *<Who  made 
God  ? "  I  hope  no  parent  or  teacher — surely 
no  Christian  parent  or  teacher — finds  diffi- 
cult of  answer.  If  the  heathen  Plato, 
guided  by  the  light  within,  could  teach 
that  we  should  not  attribute  time  relations 
to  the  Infinite  One,  that  we  should  not  say 
that  God  was,  or  will  be,  but  that  God  is, 
his  existence  an  eternal  present,  certainly 
with  the  sublime  doctrine  of  the  I  AM 
before  us,  satisfying  heart  and  brain,  we 
should  not  fail  to  give  this  conception  to 
the  unfolding  mind,  and  let  it  feel  at  once 
its  own  minuteness  and  its  own  security, 
as  we  do  more,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Eternal  Father.  Because  we  know  so  lit- 
tle of  the  Supreme,  makes  what  we  do 
know  all  the  more  precious. 

The  belief  in  a  Supreme  Being  is  so 
securely  imbedded  in  the  human  mind  that 
it  may  fairly  be  called  universal.  I  do  not 
know  that  there  never  hag  been,  or  is  not 
now,  a  race  destitute  of  this  belief;  but 
all  will  admit  that  such  a  race  must  be 
most  degraded.  True,  we  meet  rarely 
with  men  who  have  freed  themselves,  or 
67 


Ideas  from  jiature 


think  they  have  freed  themselves,  from 
all  such  ''superstition";  but  their  efforts 
to  convince  themselves  that  there  is  not 
manifested  in  the  universe  an  intelligence 
superior  to  their  own  must  be  desperate 
and  oft  renewed.  The  story  told  of  Na- 
poleon's reply  to  the  atheistic  philosophers 
who  were  trying  to  emancipate  him  from 
the  necessity  of  believing  in  God  may  be 
true  or  not,  but  it  is  suggestive.  He  is 
said  to  have  pointed  them  to  the  stars, 
which  were  shining  brightly  above,  and 
asked,  ''Gentlemen,  who  made  these .^" 
The  story  may  be  an  invention ;  the  ques- 
tion remains. 

Next  among  these  ideas  from  nature  I 
place    care.     The    Power    that    works    in 
nature  watches  over  all  his 
works  with    a    never-failing 
care.     Two    illustrations    from    chemistry 
show  how  this  is  taught.     The  object  of 
the  chemist  is  to  find  out  what  things  are 
made  of.      Most  substances  existing  in  na- 
ture or  produced  by  art   are  found  to  be 
compounded  of  two  or  more  simpler  sub- 
stances intimately  united.     These  simplest 
68 


Objections 


constituents  of   matter  we  call   elements, 
that  is,  they  are  elements  to  us.     Of  these 
we  know  about   seventy ;    all  the  known 
materials  of    our  world   are   made  up  by 
combinations    of     these.     Two    of    them 
united  form  water,  two  others   our   com- 
mon table  salt.     The  nature  of  this  union 
among  elements  is  most  mysterious;    we 
have  as  yet  no  explanation  of  it,  for  the 
substance  they  form  by  their  union  may  be 
quite  different  from  either  of  them.    Com- 
mon   salt  is   made  up  of    sodium,  a  soft, 
silver-white  metal,  that  will  take  fire  if  you 
pour  a  few  drops  of  water  on  it,  and  chlo- 
rine, a  heavy  yellowish  green  gas,  which 
inhaled  will  cause  instant  death;  yet  the 
two  united  form  this  white,  brittle  solid  so 
necessary  to   healthful   life.     These   com- 
pound   substances    may  be  resolved    into 
their  elements,   and  the  elements  recom- 
bined  to  form  the  original  compounds,  by 
methods  perfected  through  long  years  of 
patient    research.      Evidently    the    power 
that    constituted    nature    wrought    along 
lines    where    man    may   follow,   slowly    it 
is  true,  our  limited  intelligence  recogniz- 
69 


Ideas  fpom  ]\[ature 


ing  intelligence  to  which  we  can  set  no 
limits. 

As  a  thoughtful  parent,  packing  the 
boy's  trunk  for  his  first  long  stay  from 
home,  might  half  conceal  in  some  corner 
a  written  message  which  found  would 
speak  to  his  heart  of  loving  solicitude ;  so 
our  world,  often  seemingly  indifferent  to 
how  we  fare,  has  within  it,  only  half  hid- 
den, messages  for  him  who  will  read,  show- 
ing an  unmistakable  care  for  his  material 
comfort  and  intellectual  advancement  and 
spiritual  growth. 

It  is  not  yet  a  hundred  years  since  one 
of  these  messages,  the  solution  of  a  great 
problem  in  chemistry,  was  first  distinctly 
read  and  clearly  enunciated.  Then  the 
discovery  set  the  learned  world  in  commo- 
tion ;  now  it  is  but  a  commonplace  of  our 
text-books.  It  is  that  each  substance  has 
an  invariable  composition — the  elements 
that  form  a  compound  are  united  in  an 
exact  proportion  by  weight,  and  this  pro- 
portion never  varies.  Common  salt,  for 
example,  always  consists  of  twenty-three 
parts  by  weight  of  sodium  and  thirty-five 
70 


Objections 


and  five-tenths  parts  of  chlorine,  and  no 
other  proportions  of  these  elements  can 
be  made  to  produce  that  substance. 

It  fell  to  the  lot  of  John  Dalton,  the 
son  of  a  poor  weaver,  who  from  boyhood 
had  worked  his  own  way,  to  give  the  full 
statement  of  this  grand  fact  of  nature  and 
assign  a  satisfactory  explanation,  the  fam- 
ous atomic  theory  of  Dalton.  We  may 
form  an  estimate  of  the  value  of  Dalton's 
work  when  we  remember  that  he  is  as- 
signed a  place  among  the  immortals  of 
science  beside  Newton. 

Every  advance  of  chemistry  supplies 
new  impetus  to  the  progress  of  the  world. 
It  is  instructive  to  consider  how  much  the 
practical  application  of  the  discoveries  of 
this  science  has  contributed  to  individual 
well-being  and  national  prosperity.  It 
aids  man  in  his  work  on  the  farm,  in  the 
mine,  in  the  factory ;  it  is  ever  present  in 
the  home ;  it  watches  over  the  preparation 
of  food  for  the  well  and  medicine  for  the 
sick.  Roscoe  says  that  the  standing  of  a 
people  among  manufacturing  nations  may 
be  estimated  by  the  amount  they  use  of  one 
71 


Ideas  from  jiature 


of  its  products.  An  attempt  to  do  without 
its  aid  would  drop  the  most  prosperous 
nations  into  beggary.  As  a  means  of  ed- 
ucation its  methods  of  patient  research 
and  rigorous  verification  give  it  still  greater 
value. 

But  we  have  higher  needs  than  these. 
Can  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  chemical 
combination,  that  have  proved  so  helpful 
as  the  basis  of  a  science,  aid  us  in  answer- 
ing any  of  those  questions  that  express 
the  loftier  aspirations  of  the  soul }  Un- 
questionably it  does.  These  laws  point  out 
to  us  that  in  the  exact  and  unvarying  com- 
position of  all  substances  we  have  ever 
present  before  us  the  evidences  of  unfail- 
ing care.  A  fragment  of  quartz  picked 
up  in  a  ramble  may  seem  an  unmeaning 
thing,  but  analysis  will  show  that  it  is 
made  up  of  two  elements  combined  with 
an  accuracy  which  our  most  delicate 
methods  can  only  approach.  And  wher- 
ever one  finds  it,  forming  great  masses  of 
rock,  ground  to  fragments  and  strewing 
the  desert,  trodden  into  the  mire  of  the 
streets,  or  sparkling  in  the  crystal,  it  will 
72 


Objections 


yield  the  same  elements  in  the  same  un- 
varying ratio.  And  the  like  is  true  of 
every  other  compound. 

The  mind  turns  spontaneously  to  the 
question  of  Isaiah  :  ''Who  hath  measured 
the  waters  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  and 
meted  out  heaven  with  the  span,  and  com- 
prehended the  dust  of  the  earth  in  a 
measure,  and  weighed  the  mountains  in 
scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance  ?  "  To- 
day question  and  answer  are  re-echoed, 
not  alone  by  poet  and  seer,  but  by  the 
worker  in  the  laboratory,  where  men  put 
nature  to  the  torture  by  fire,  pry  into  its 
secrets  with  the  microscope,  weigh  its  tes- 
timony in  the  balance,  examine  its  answers 
in  the  dry  light  of  science,  and  with  the 
precision  of  the  mathematical  formula. 

Additional  testimony  to  the  same  truth 
comes  from  another  source.     Not  only  has 

each  substance  a  fixed  com- 

■u  ^  V  I,        J  i:  V     Plans  in  the 
position,  but  it  has  a  derinite 

internal  structure — a  plan  on 

which  it  is  built.     This  is  shown  externally 

in  those  regular  geometrical  forms  called 

crystals^   which  minerals   tend   to   assume 

73 


Ideas  from  plature 


when  allowed  to  solidify  undisturbed.  We 
find  them  in  nature ;  but  the  testimony  of 
things  is  most  forcible  when  it  comes  as 
an  answer  to  our  own  questions.  Take  a 
pinch  of  table  salt,  dissolve  it  in  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  water,  spread  the  clear  liquid 
on  a  glass  plate,  and  watch  it  through  a 
lens.  The  water  dries  up  and  the  solid  is 
deposited  on  the  glass  plate.  This  was  to 
be  expected,  but  not  so  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  done.  The  solid  is  not  left  as 
an  incrustation  on  the  glass,  but  the  invisi- 
ble materials  are  drawn  away  from  inter- 
vening spaces,  and  built  together  into 
regular  forms — tiny  cubes  with  beautifully 
sculptured  faces. 

The  significance  of  all  this  is  not  easily 
overrated.  The  power  behind  nature  is 
here  seen  at  work,  operating  according  to 
a  clearly  defined  plan  toward  a  definite  end. 
But  there  is  more  than  power  and  intelli- 
gence shown  in  this  ;  there  is  the  added 
revelation  of  care,  care  that  extends  to  the 
invisible  particles  of  matter  and  handles 
them  more  deftly  than  the  skilled  builder 
can  handle  his  materials.  So  other  sub- 
74 


Objections 


stances  yield  results,  like  but  varied,  for 
the  builder  of  the  universe  is  not  limited 
in  mechanics. 

Any  one  who  has  watched  this  process 
closely,  has  seen  the  symmetrical  bodies 
take  shape  under  the  microscope,  gathering 
into  isolated  crystals,  branching  out  at 
definite  angles,  shooting  up  in  bundles  of 
divergent  fibres  like  the  lines  of  an  advan- 
cing host,  will  remember  the  awe  inspired 
by  the  sight.  It  seems  as  though  one 
could  almost  hear  the  order  given  that 
called  each  well-drilled  particle  to  its  place 
in  the  ranks.  "  Consider  the  lilies  how 
they  grow  "  was  the  lesson  of  the  world's 
supreme  Teacher  to  the  worrying  and  the 
disheartened.  For  the  inquiring  and  halt- 
ing of  our  day,  science  utters  the  same  im- 
plied assurance ;  for  the  power  that  watches 
over  the  minutest  particles  of  matter  can- 
not be  unmindful  of  the  need  of  the  hu- 
man soul. 

This  assurance  of  the  care  of  the  Creator 

is  a  very  precious  thought  to  us,  and  it  is 

the  more  significant  to  find  it  taught  in 

nature,  the  workmanship  of  the   Creator, 

75 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


because  nature  often  appears  heedless.  Its 
forces  are  so  resistless  that  they  seem  as 
ready  to  crush  us  as  to  nourish  us.  It  is  so 
boundless  that  our  own  individual  existence 
appears  too  insignificant  to  be  regarded. 

We  not  unfrequently  meet  with  argu- 
ments framed  in  this  way — it  is  a  favorite 
with  the  professional  vender  of  difficulties 
and  objections  :  The  universe  is  too  wide, 
he  says,  with  its  space  without  limit, 
worlds  and  suns  numberless  and  vast,  to 
allow  us  to  believe  that  the  great  Creator 
has  devoted  so  much  attention  as  the 
Christian  scheme  declares,  to  this  little 
planet  of  ours  which,  looked  at  from  a 
moderate  (astronomical)  distance,  would 
appear  but  as  a  mote  in  the  sunbeam. 

An  ingenious  writer,  familiar  with  the 
resources  of  rhetoric,  may  pile  up  from  such 
materials  a  very  threatening  mountain  of 
doubt.  Dr.  Draper  has  done  this  in  that 
wickedly  inaccurate  book  "  A  History  of 
the  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Sci- 
ence." It  would  be  pertinent  to  ask  such 
reasoners   just    how    large    a   world   or  a 

creature  must  be  before  its  Creator  could 
76 


Objections 


see  it  or  deem  it  worthy  of  attention,  more 
pertinent  to  point  out  that  he  who  guides 
the  course  of  events  in  nature  and  human 
history  has  shown  a  decided  preference  for 
the  use  of  agents  weak  and  small.  An  is- 
land is  built  up  in  the  ocean  by  the  labors 
of  that  tiny  workman,  the  coral  polyp  ;  a 
continent  is  composed  of  grains  of  sand 
and  clay;  nay,  according  to  our  best  sci- 
ence, the  world  itself  is  formed  from  atoms. 
History  bristles  with  similar  illustrations, 
showing  what  feeble  agencies  have  been 
employed  to  mold  the  character  of  a  nation, 
shape  the  destiny  of  the  world.  The  di- 
rect and  unequivocal  testimony  of  the 
science  we  have  been  following  is  this  : 
There  is  not  a  mountain,  however  huge,  or 
a  particle,  however  small,  that  does  not 
bear  witness  by  the  uniform  composition 
and  structure  of  its  materials  to  an  over- 
ruling care  that  neither  fails  nor  forgets. 

The  unvarying  composition  of  all  kinds 
of  matter  shows  that  they  are 
constituted  of  exact,  weigh-       *' 
able   quantities.      Thus  any 
sample    of    common    salt   yields   its   ele- 
77 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


ments,  sodium  and  chlorine,  in  the  ratio  of 
twenty-three  parts  by  weight  of  sodium  to 
thirty-five  and  five-tenth  parts  of  chlorine. 
These  are  called  the  combining  weights 
of  those  elements  and  recur  whenever 
either  of  them  combines  with  any  other 
element.  Numbers  representing  the  com- 
bining weights  of  the  other  elements  are 
found  in  a  similar  way.  These  significant 
facts  have  led  to  a  belief  that  matter  is 
composed  of  atoms,  minute  indivisible  parts 
having  a  fixed  weight,  the  combining  weight 
above  referred  to,  and  consequently  always 
the  same  for  the  same  element,  but  differ- 
ent for  different  elements.  According  to 
this  explanation,  the  numbers  twenty-three 
and  thirty-five  and  five-tenths  represent  the 
weights  of  the  atoms,  or  least  parts,  of  so- 
dium and  chlorine,  in  terms  of  the  lightest 
atom  known,  hydrogen.  One  atom  of 
sodium  and  one  of  chlorine  united  by  chem- 
ical affinity  form  a  molecule  or  least  part, 
of  the  substance  common  salt. 

From    these    weighable    quantities    or 
atoms  that  compose  all  bodies,  another  idea 
has  been  derived  by  two  philosophers  of  the 
78 


Objections 


first  eminence,  Sir  J.  W.  Herschel  and  Pro- 
fessor Clerk-Maxwell.  It  is  that  matter 
declares  itself  to  be  a  created  thing.  The 
term  atom,  or  that  of  molecule,  is  used  in 
the  discussion  on  account  of  its  definite- 
ness,  not  because  the  argument  relies  on 
the  atomic  theory;  for  it  rests  on  the  uni- 
formity of  the  combining  weights  as  shown 
by  analysis  and  is  unaffected  by  theory. 

Before  quoting  the  words  of  these  au- 
thorities, let  us  consider  the  question  to 
which  they  apply.  One  of  our  greatest 
intellectual  difficulties  is  to  form  any  satis- 
factory notion  concerning  the  origin  of 
things.  How  did  nature  come  into  exist- 
ence ?  True,  it  is  quite  as  impossible  for 
the  finite  mind  to  comprehend  present  ex- 
istence, with  all  it  implies,  as  to  grasp  the 
idea  of  origins.  But  of  our  own  present 
existence  we  have  the  direct  evidence  of 
thought,  and  the  experience  of  external 
things  gained  through  the  senses  convin- 
ces us  of  the  existence  of  realities  outside 
us  ;  while  the  beginning  transcends  both 
thought  and  experience.  Reason  and  sense 
compel  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  an 
79 


Ideas  from  plature 


external  world,  but  afford  no  hint  or  analogy 
to  aid  us  in  understanding  how  it  came  into 
existence. 

Starting  with  the  certainty  of  present 
existence,  we  find  it  necessary  to  believe 
in  the  eternal  existence  of  something.  Are 
matter  and  energy  thus  eternal  ?  or  are 
they  dependent  entities,  creatures  of  a  first 
Cause  ?  It  is  true  that  there  is  a  very 
simple  solution  offered  in  the  words,  ''  In 
the  beginning  God  created."  God  is  the 
eternal  existence ;  besides  him  and  his 
creation  nothing  exists.  But  this  solution, 
although  it  is  admitted  to  afford  the  only 
sure  and  sufficient  basis  for  both  science 
and  philosophy,  is  not  acceptable  to  all. 

A  belief  in  the  eternal  existence  of  mat- 
ter is  sometimes  adopted  as  an  escape  from 
the  theory  of  creation.  Leaving  out  of 
the  question  all  other  considerations,  it 
would  evidently  be  most  satisfactory  if 
matter  itself  could  testify  concerning  its 
own  origin,  as  the  gold  coin  testifies  of  the 
mint  in  which  it  was  struck.  This  is  what 
it  is  claimed  to  do  by  Herschel  and  Max- 
well, examining  it  in  the  light  of  the  most 


80 


Objections 


advanced  scientific  research.  Their  argu- 
ment is  briefly  this  :  The  atoms  of  each 
element  exist  in  countless  multitudes,  but 
are  all  alike ;  this  effectually  disposes  of 
the  idea  of  an  eternally  existing,  that  is  a 
self-existing,  matter,  because  it  shows  that 
the  atoms  have  all  the  essential  qualities  of 
manufactured  articles,  like  similar  parts  of 
many  watches,  all  made  in  the  same  ma- 
chine. To  make  sure  that  we  do  not  miss 
the  great  significance  of  this,  let  us  borrow 
light  from  an  illustration. 

A  friend  shows  you  a  rounded  pebble  of 
limestone  which  he  tells  you  he  picked  up 
on  the  seashore,  and  he  maintains  that  it 
was  brought  to  its  present  form  by  the  ac- 
tion of  the  waves.  You  are  inclined  to 
believe  him  and  agree  with  him,  not  only 
because  of  his  assertion  and  apparent  sin- 
cerity, but  because  you  have  noticed  that 
the  tendency  of  such  action  is  to  give 
a  rounded  form.  On  closer  examination 
you  find  that  the  pebble  is  an  exact  sphere. 
Doubt  arises  ;  here  is  an  exactness  that  is 
seemingly  incompatible  with  the  action  of 
forces  not  guided  by  purpose.  Then  your 
F  8i 


Ideas  from  flature 


friend  shows  you  a  second  pebble  of  the 
same  material  and  appearance  as  the  first. 
You  are  now  almost  certain  that  his  ex- 
planation of  the  manner  in  which  they 
were  formed  is  erroneous.  Proceeding  in 
the  inquiry  you  find  that  the  two  pebbles 
have  exactly  the  same  size,  shape,  and 
weight.  Now  you  are  fully  convinced  that 
your  friend  is  wrong  ;  the  exact  shape  and 
the  perfect  equality  of  weight  suggests 
design  as  the  only  rational  explanation. 

But  he  has  scores  of  them,  all  like  the 
first,  and  other  spheres  of  granite,  others 
of  quartz ;  all  of  the  same  kind  are  alike, 
but  each  kind  differs  from  all  the  other 
kinds.  You  look  at  them  and  you  know 
that  they  are  manufactured  articles ;  each 
kind  testifies  that  it  is  as  it  is  because 
some  workman,  and  a  very  skillful  work- 
man, designed  that  it  should  be  so  and 
made  it  so. 

Now  apply  this  reasoning  about  the  peb- 

bles  to  the  atoms  of  the  ele- 
Tlie  Uniform  ^^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^  -^  ^^^  ^^^^ 

JVIyriads  \\{xng^  to  the  combining 
weights  of  these  elements.     We  prepare 


82 


Objections 


hydrogen  in  the  laboratory  to-day  by  pour- 
ing an  acid  on  a  metal  ;  it  has  certain 
properties  by  which  we  recognize  it,  a  cer- 
tain proportion  by  weight  in  which  it  unites 
with  other  elements,  its  atomic  weight.  We 
procure  it  from  coal  which  has  lain  for 
ages  in  the  earth's  crust ;  we  extract  it 
from  a  meteorite  that  has  come  from  no  one 
knows  where  in  the  regions  of  space.  Its 
properties  are  the  same,  its  atoms  are  the 
same,  no  matter  where  procured,  or  in  what 
quantities.  This  unvarying  sameness  of  the 
atoms  is  as  truly  the  manufacturer's  stamp 
as  is  the  uniform  impression  on  the  coin. 

For  fear  of  misapprehension  let  us  turn 
around  and  look  at  the  subject  from  the 
opposite  side.  Suppose  some  one  asks  : 
"  Why  may  not  these  atoms  be  all  alike 
and  yet  self-existent  ?  "  On  this  supposi- 
tion each  atom  is  a  separate,  independent 
existence,  self-caused.  That  even  two 
should  arise  just  alike  is  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable.  That  the  millions 
which  have  been  examined  should  have  all 
been  alike  is  impossible,  unless  they  all  had 
a  connection  in  origin  sufficient  to  secure 

83 


Ideas  from  J^ature 


this  uniformity.  Such  connection  in  origin 
simply  means  that  one  being  made  them  all. 

Now  I  think  we  are  prepared  to  compre- 
hend the  significance  of  the  opinions  given 
by  the  two  philosophers  I  have  named. 

Sir  J.  W.  Herschel  says :  "  Chemical 
analysis  most  certainly  points  to  an  origin, 
and  effectually  destroys  the  idea  of  an 
eternal  self-existent  matter,  by  giving  to 
each  of  its  atoms  the  essential  character  at 
once  of  a  manufactured  article,  and  a  sub- 
ordinate agent."  ^ 

The  following  are  the  words  of  Professor 
Clerk-Maxwell :  "  Each  molecule  through- 
out the  universe  bears  impressed  on  it  the 
stamp  of  a  metric  system  as  distinctly  as 
does  the  niHre  of  the  Archives  at  Paris,  or 
the  double  royal  cubit  of  the  Temple  of 
Karnac. 

"  No  theory  of  evolution  can  be  formed 
to  account  for  the  similarity  of  molecules, 
for  evolution  necessarily  implies  continuous 
change,  and  the  molecule  is  incapable  of 
growth  or  decay,  generation  or  destruction. 

"  None  of  the  processes  of  nature,  since 

1  **  Dissertation  on  the  Study  of  Natural  Philosophy." 
84 


Objections 


the  time  when  nature  began,  have  produced 
the  sUghtest  difference  in  the  properties  of 
any  molecule.  We  are  therefore  unable  to 
ascribe  either  the  existence  of  the  molecules 
or  the  identity  of  their  properties  to  the 
operation  of  any  of  the  causes  which  are 
called  natural. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  the  exact  equality 
of  each  molecule  to  all  others  of  the  same 
kind  gives  it,  as  Sir  John  Herschel  has  well 
said,  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  manu- 
factured article,  and  precludes  the  idea  of 
its  being  eternal  and  self-existent. 

"  They  continue  this  day  as  they  were 
created,  perfect  in  number  and  measure 
and  weight,  and  from  the  ineffaceable 
character  impressed  on  them  we  may  learn 
that  those  aspirations  after  accuracy  in 
measurement,  truth  in  statement,  and  jus- 
tice in  action,  which  we  reckon  among  our 
noblest  attributes  as  men,  are  ours  because 
they  are  essential  constituents  of  the  image 
of  Him  who  in  the  beginning  created,  not 
only  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  but  the  ma- 
terials of  which  heaven  and  earth  consist."  ^ 


Nature,"  Vol.  IV.,  p.  270. 
85 


Ill 

ENERGg 


In  contemplation  of  created  things, 
By  steps  we  may  ascend  to  God, 

— CMilton 


Ill 


These  discussions  were  begun  with  a 
sentence  from  a  text-book  of  chemistry, 
"The  sensible  universe  is  made  up  of 
matter  and  energy"  ;  matter,  the  material 
of  which  all  bodies  consist ;  energy,  that 
which  produces  changes  in  matter.  The 
forces  of  nature,  light,  heat,  electricity, 
chemical  affinity,  are  described  in  science 
as  different  forms  of  energy.  It  is  found 
that  these  may  be  converted  one  into 
another,  through  many  changes,  without 
loss.  This  is  expressed  in  the  scientific 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
the  word  conservation,  firmly  imbedded  in 
scientific  language,  implying  the  belief 
that,  as  with  matter  so  with  energy,  there 
is  a  Power  in  nature  that  preserves. 

A  very  hasty  glance   at    same    of  the 

properties  of   the  substances  best  known 

to  us  showed  that  science,  though  dealing 

with  material  things,  does  not  justify  ma- 
89 


Ideas  from  plature 


terialism,  but  that  the  order  manifested  in 
nature  leads  us  up  to  a  Divine  Intelligence 
as  its  cause.  The  exact  composition  and 
individual  structure  of  each  kind  of  mat- 
ter proclaim  immanent  care  ;  the  invaria- 
bleness  of  the  atom  shows  it  to  be  the 
work  of  a  Creator.  An  inquiry  into  the 
nature  of  energy  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  also  is  a  dependent  existence. 

We  observe  that  not  all  the  exhibitions 
of  energy  we  see  are  due  to  what  we  call 
natural  causes.  Some  of  them  are  pro- 
duced by  man.  The  rush  of  the  train  ; 
the  motion  of  factory  wheels ;  the  im- 
measurable activities  which  civilization 
employs,  are  of  this  kind.  The  motion  of 
a  ball  thrown  by  the  hand  is  traced  to  the 
motion  of  the  muscles  of  the  arm  of  the 
thrower  acting  in  obedience  to  his  will. 
In  like  manner,  all  the  varied  motions 
just  referred  to  are  directly  traceable  to 
the  same  origin,  the  human  will  acting  ac- 
cording to  a  preconceived  plan.  Thus  all 
exhibitions  of  energy  which  we  are  able  to 
trace  to  their  source,  lead  us  to  the  same 

source,  the  will  of  an  intelligent  being. 
90 


Energy 


Let  us  listen  to  what  the  men  who  have 

studied  the  subject  most  profoundly,  both 

from    the    side    of    science 

and  philosophy,  have  to  say    f^^f^Jf.^^f 
,      f  ,,       .  ^  r  •  1      find  Will 

about    the    mference    fairly 

deducible  from  this. 

Herbert  Spencer :  **  The  force  by  which 
we  ourselves  produce  changes,  and  which 
serves  to  symbolize  the  cause  of  changes 
in  general,  is  the  final  disclosure  of  all 
analysis.  .  .  All  other  modes  of  conscious- 
ness are  derived  from  our  own  conscious- 
ness of  exerting  force." 

Sir  John  Herschel :  "  It  is  but  reasona- 
able  to  regard  the  force  of  gravitation  as 
the  direct  or  indirect  result  of  a  Con- 
sciousness or  a  Will  existing  somewhere." 

Dr.  Carpenter  :  ''  Force  must  be  taken 
as  the  direct  expression  of  Will." 

Sir  WiUiam  Grove  :  "  In  all  phenomena 
the  more  closely  they  are  investigated  the 
more  are  we  convinced  that,  humanly 
speaking,  neither  matter  nor  force  can  be 
created  nor  annihilated.  .  .  Causation  is 
the  will,  creation  is  the  act,  of  God." 

The  Duke  of  Argyle  :  "  Science,  in  the 
91 


Ideas  from  ffature 


modern  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  and  the  convertibiHty  of  forces,  is 
already  getting  hold  of  the  idea  that  all 
kinds  of  force  are  but  forms  and  mani- 
festations of  some  one  central  force  issu- 
ing from  some  one  fountain-head  of 
power.  .  .  This  one  force,  into  which  all 
others  return  again,  is  itself  but  a  mode 
of  action  of  the  Divine  Will." 

These  considerations  are  sufficient  to 
assure  us  that  nature,  interpreted  accord- 
ing to  the  most  advanced  science  by  the 
men  best  qualified  to  interpret  it,  pro- 
claims a  personal  God  as  its  maker  and 
ruler.  It  does  not  make  known  merely  a 
great  Architect  of  the  universe,  but  a 
Creator ;  it  is  at  one  with  religion  in  re- 
ferring both  matter  and  energy  to  their 
origin  in  Eternal  Mind. 

But  can  the  finite  mind  know  the  In- 
finite ?  Who  was  it  that  asked,  *'  Canst 
thou  by  searching  find  out 
Is  Qod       Qod?"     The    gj-eat    jj^g^- 

^  nuity  with  which  doubt  has 

been  cast  on  man's  ability  to  know  that 

there  is  some  reality  behind  the  phenom- 
92 


Energy 

ena  of  mind  and  matter,  has  given  us, 
through  various  changes,  the  cleverest  of 
all  devices  yet  hit  upon  for  dismissing  the 
thought  of  God.  This  is  agnosticism, 
presumed  by  its  adherents  to  have  some 
special  attractions  for  the  student  of  sci- 
ence. The  name  agnosticism  is  of  recent 
origin,  but  the  doctrine  dates  back  at  least 
as  far  as  Hume.  Huxley  and  Spencer  are 
its  greatest  modern  exponents.  The  ag- 
nostic does  not  affirm  either  the  existence 
or  the  non-existence  of  God ;  he  holds 
that  to  assert  the  one  is  as  unphilosophic 
as  to  assert  the  other. 

Herbert  Spencer  began  his  "  First  Prin- 
ciples" with  an  introduction  containing  his 
statement  of  the  argument :  ''The  objects 
and  actions  surrounding  us,  no  less  than 
the  phenomena  of  our  own  consciousness, 
compel  us  to  ask  a  cause ;  in  our  search 
for  a  cause  we  discover  no  resting-place 
until  we  arrive  at  the  hypothesis  of  a  first 
Cause ;  and  we  have  no  alternative  but  to 
regard  this  first  Cause  as  infinite  and  ab- 
solute." 

He  then  uses  and  extends  Hansel's  ar- 
93 


Ideas  from  ]\[atiire 


gument,  the  sum  of  which  is,  that  the 
human  mind  cannot  comprehend  the  infin- 
ite and  the  absolute,  that  every  form  of 
thought  under  which  we  attempt  to  con- 
ceive of  either  leads  to  conclusions  that  are 
unthinkable. 

Much  of  this  is  no  doubt  true.  As  long 
ago  as  the  time  of  Job  it  was  clearly 
understood  that  man  cannot  find  out  the 
Almighty  to  perfection.  Whenever  man 
undertakes  to  do  this,  his  search  will  lead 
him  into  contradictions  of  thought  ;  but 
this  does  not  prove,  as  the  agnostic  argues, 
that  God  is  both  unknown  and  unknowa- 
ble. Mr.  Spencer  is  a  man  of  great  specu- 
lative ability,  possessing  a  very  extensive, 
if  not  profound,  acquaintance  with  science. 
It  is  hard  to  understand  how  any  one  can 
read  his  works  without  admiring  the  power 
he  has  shown  in  the  gigantic  outline  he 
has  sketched,  and  the  work  he  has  done 
upon  it.  He  deals  largely  in  dogmatic 
statement,  and  his  judicial  method  is  liable 
at  first  to  produce  on  the  reader  the  im- 
pression that  he  claims  absolute  inerrancy. 
This  of  course  will  not  be  conceded  to  any 
94 


Energy 


man,  and  while  we  grant  freely  the  great 
value  of  much  he  has  done,  we  need  not 
apologize  for  testing  his  speculative  views 
before  adopting  them.  Just  now  let  us 
consider  this  one  question  :  "  Is  it  certain 
that  man  cannot  know  anything  of  God?" 
First,  the  incomprehensible  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  unknowable.  There  are  many 
things  we  cannot  comprehend,  space,  for 
example,  and  Spencer  includes  space  and 
time  in  the  unknowable.  Now  if  any  of 
us  were  to  awake  at  midnight  and  find  the 
building  all  about  us  wrapped  in  flames, 
our  movements  would  at  once  show  that 
we  possessed  some  definite  and  valuable 
knowledge  of  time ;  and  if  we  were  com- 
pelled to  leap  from  a  window  to  save  our 
lives,  we  would  greatly  prefer  a  first-story 
window  to  a  fifth-story  one,  because  of 
something  which  we  know  for  a  certainty 
about  space.  In  like  manner  a  thing  may 
be  unthinkable  to  us  and  yet  quite  true. 
The  passage  from  the  last  physical  effect 
produced  by  the  activity  of  a  sense  organ 
to  the  thought  which  follows  this  activity 
is  unthinkable.  Nothing  more  truly  de- 
95 


Ideas  from  flature 


fies  man's  power  of  conception  than  the 
passage  from  the  disturbance  of  the  phys- 
ical apparatus  of  hearing  by  the  waves 
of  the  air  to  that  elevation  of  soul  which 
we  experience  when  we  listen  to  grand 
music  or  sublime  oratory. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Spencer 
does  not  deny  the  existence  of  God  ;   he 

,  claims  not  to  weaken  but  to 

The^£gilos-    strengthen  that  belief,  for  he 

tic  s  Uiffi-  g^yg  u  Q^\y  in  a  doctrine 
cultJies  which  recognizes  the  un- 
known Cause  as  co-extensive  with  all  orders 
of  phenomena  can  there  be  a  consistent 
religion  or  a  consistent  philosophy."  What 
he  wishes  to  convince  us  of  is  that  the 
Cause  is  not  only  unknown  but  unknow- 
able. In  this  he  has  undertaken  an  im- 
possible task  ;  the  stars  in  their  courses 
fight  against  him. 

Second,  the  agnostic's  practice  is  not  in 
accordance  with  his  preaching.  He  con- 
ditions the  unconditioned.  He  declares 
that  he  knows  nothing  about  God,  and 
seeks  to  convince  others  that  they  can 
know  nothing,  yet  he  proclaims  that  God 
96 


Energy 


is  unknowable.  It  is  no  play  upon  words 
to  say  that  to  know  this  he  must  know 
much  about  God.  In  truth,  the  agnostic 
is  the  man  who  knows  altogether  too  much 
about  God.  He  knows  more  than  is  true  ; 
more  than  he  can  give  any  adequate  reason 
for.  He  knows,  or  professes  to  know,  that 
the  Infinite  Creator  whom  he  confesses 
cannot  make  himself  known  to  man  in  any 
degree;  that  man,  even  with  divine  aid, 
cannot  know  anything  about  his  Maker. 
And  all  he  has  to  offer  in  evidence  is  the 
well-worn  truism,  "  The  finite  cannot  com- 
prehend the  Infinite."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  are  able  to  know  something  of 
any  intelligent  being  whose  work  we  have 
an  opportunity  to  examine,  though  we  are 
utterly  unable  to  comprehend  being  in  any 
mode. 

Granted  only  the  foothold  of  faith  which 
the  agnostic  admits, — an  infinite,  independ- 
ent First  Cause, — it  follows  that  the  system 
of  nature,  the  sum  of  effects,  is  his  work ; 
and  this  work  studied  with  honesty  and 
humility  is  found  to  be  intelligible,  and 
does  enable  us,  not  to  comprehend  God, 
G  97 


Ideas  from  ]N[ature 


but  to  apprehend  many  things  about  him. 
It  gives  us  the  strongest  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  God  is,  and  that  he  is  not  only 
powerful  but  also  wise  and  benevolent. 

There  are  not  wanting,  even  now,  signs 
that  the  charm  of  the  new  device  is  broken. 
The  men  who  can  be  attracted  by  a  God 
of  whom  nothing  can  be  known  are  mainly 
those  who  do  not  wish  to  retain  the  thought 
of  God.  A  creed  with  nothing  in  it  is 
scarcely  worth  professing ;  most  of  its 
willing  adherents  gravitate  away  from  it 
toward  blank  negation.  The  few  who 
were  deceived  into  believing  that  evolution 
had  dethroned  God,  and  hastily,  though 
sadly,  renounced  their  faith  in  him,  come 
at  last  to  see,  as  George  Romanes  did  so 
lately,  that  in  the  fiercest  glare  of  scientific 
truth  Christianity  is  a  wholly  reasonable 
belief,  and  return  to  it  with  joy. 

Those  acquainted  with  the  biological 
advances  of  the  past  quarter  of  a  century 
are  familiar  with  the  name  of  George  Ro- 
manes. A  graduate  of  Cambridge,  he  soon 
distinguished  himself  as  an  original  investi- 
gator and  brilliant  writer.  He  had  been 
98 


Energy 

educated  in  evangelical  views,  which  he 
loved  and  defended.  In  1873  he  won  the 
Burney  Prize  with  an  essay  on  "  Christian 
Prayer  and  General  Laws,"  and  was  re- 
garded as  a  champion  of  the  Christian 
faith.  Then  came  the  fierce  contest  be- 
tween popular  theology  and  a  rising  sci- 
ence, which  seemed  to  many,  and  to  Ro- 
manes among  the  number,  about  to  estab- 
lish the  reign  of  materialism.  In  1878 
he  published  a  book  entitled  "  A  Candid 
Examination  of  Theism,"  in  which  he  re- 
jected belief  in  a  personal  God  and  Chris- 
tian revelation,  not  flippantly,  but  sincerely 
and  with  sorrow.  In  their  place  he  ac- 
cepted the  agnostic  philosophy.  Later  in 
life  he  began  to  apply  his  skepticism  to  the 
examination  of  his  doubts  about  religion, 
and  found  that  they  gave  way  under  the 
test,  found  that  it  is  "  reasonable  to  be  a 
Christian  believer."  At  his  death  he  left 
a  manuscript  containing  the  notes  for  a 
work  he  had  intended  to  write.  These 
notes  are  now  published  under  the  title 
"Thoughts  on  Religion."  They  are  the 
record  of  a  very  real  search  after  truth, 
99 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


and  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, "  What  bearing  has  the  science  of  our 
day  on  belief  in  God  and  the  Bible  ? " 
Jesus  Christ  made  a  place  in  his  church 
for  the  honest  skeptic  who  wants  evidence 
before  he  believes,  and  is  ready  to  believe 
when  he  gets  it. 

The  character  of  Romanes  is  so  manly 
and  attractive,  his  intellect  was  so  vigorous 
and  healthy,  his  search  for  truth  so  real, 
so  persistent,  and  at  last  so  successful,  that 
I  have  selected  a  few  passages  from  his 
"  Life,"  ^  written  by  one  who  shared  his  in- 
most thoughts,  in  order  that  we  may  learn 
his  secret  and  take  new  courage  from  the 
helpful  lesson  of  his  experience.  It  is  a 
lesson  for  the  time,  especially  a  lesson  for 
young  thinkers,  coming  in  their  turn  to 
some  slight  degree  face  to  face  with  things 
as  they  are,  and  wishing,  as  all  should 
wish,  to  think  for  themselves.  Too  often, 
in  this  mood,  the  swellings  of  conceit  may 
be  mistaken  for  the  workings  of  new  truth 
within  ;  or  the  mere  desire  to  be  free  from 

1  "Life  and  Letters  of  George  John  Romanes," 
Longmans  &  Co. 

lOO 


Energy 


the  restraints  of  Christianity  impels  one  to 
join  the  cry,  ''  Let  us  break  their  bands 
asunder,  and  cast  away  their  cords  from  us." 
It  is  a  time  to  think  earnestly,  prayerfully ; 
to  make  sure  that. we  choose  the  best,  that 
is,  the  truest — the  eternally  true. 

"In  addition  to  other  scientific  and 
purely  philosophical  work,  Mr.  Romanes 
had,  even  while  writing  his  Burney 
Prize,  entered  on  that  period  of  conflict 
between  faith  and  skepticism,  which  grew 
more  and  more  strenuous,  more  painful,  as 
the  years  went  on,  which  never  really 
ceased  until  within  a  few  weeks  of  his 
death,  and  which  was  destined  to  end  in  a 
chastened,  a  purified,  and  a  victorious  faith. 
His  was  a  religious  nature,  keenly  alive  to 
religious  emotion,  profoundly  influenced  by 
Christian  ideals,  by  Christian  modes  of 
thought.  As  time  went  on  he  felt,  like  all 
philosophically  minded  men,  the  impossi- 
bility of  a  purely  materialistic  position, 
and  as  he  pondered  on  the  final,  ultimate 
mysteries,  on  God,  immortality,  duty,  he 
arrived  very  slowly,  very  painfully,  but 
very  surely,  at  the  Christian  position. 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


"  But  the  years  were,  to  him  and  to 
many,  years  of  peculiar  and  of  extraordi- 
nary difficulty.  Roughly  speaking,  the 
time  between  i860  and  1880  was  a  time 
of  great  perplexity  to  those  who  wished 
to  adhere  to  the  faith  of  Christendom."^ 

"In  1878  he  had  touched  the  very 
depths  of  skepticism,  and  he  would  have 
rejected  the  idea  of  a  possibility  of  return, 
and  would  have  rejected  it  in  terms  of  un- 
measured regret."^ 

"  The  reaction  against  the  conclusions 
of  the  essay  [his  '  Candid  Examination  of 
Theism ']  set  in  far  sooner  than  has  been  at 
all  suspected.  Perhaps  the  first  published 
mark  of  reaction  is  the  '  Rede  Lecture,'  of 
1885."^ 

''  Many  influences  were  working  in  him  ; 
a  ripening  judgment,  a  grovv^th  of  charac- 
ter, a  deepening  sense  of  the  inadequacy 
of  scientific  research,  philosophical  specu- 
lation, and  artistic  pleasures  to  fill  the 
vacuum  in  the  soul  of  man."^ 

^  "Life  and  Letters  of  George  John  Romanes,"  p.  81. 

•■^/^z^.,  p.  87.  '^/^zV/.,  p.  86. 

^Ibid.,  p.  261. 

102 


Energy 


A  beautiful  little  sonnet  written  about 
this  time  (1890)  tells  better  than  anything 
else  the  story  of  his  longings : 

I  ask  not  for  thy  love,  O  Lord  ;  the  days 

Can  never  come  when  anguish  shall  atone. 

Enough  for  me  were  but  thy  pity  shown, 
To  me  as  to  the  stricken  sheep  that  strays, 
With  ceaseless  cry  for  unforgotten  ways — 

Oh,  lead  me  back  to  pastures  I  have  known. 

Or  find  me  in  the  wilderness  alone, 
And  slay  me,  as  the  hand  of  mercy  slays. 
I  ask  not  for  thy  love  ;  nor  e  en  so  much 

As  for  a  hope  on  thy  dear  breast  to  lie  ; 
But  be  thou  still  my  shepherd — still  with  such 

Compassion  as  may  melt  to  such  a  cry  ; 
That  so  I  hear  thy  feet,  and  feel  thy  touch, 

And  dimly  see  thy  face  ere  yet  I  die. 

And  so  the  soul  struggle  went  on,  side 
by  side  with  his  splendid  work  in  biologi- 
cal research,  in  which  his  interest  never 
flagged  to  the  last. 

''  Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous  than 

to  suppose  that  the  change  in  point  of  view 

was  sudden,  or  due  to  any  fear  of  death, 

or  that  it  caused  mental  suffering  to  the 

author  of  'Thoughts  on  Religion,'  or  that 
103 


Ideas  from  plature 


he  was    influenced  by  any  one,  priest  or 
layman."  ^ 

Not  long  before  his  death  he  said  :  "  I 
have  now  come  to  see  that  faith  is  intel- 
lectually justifiable."^ 

"  The  change  that  came  over  his  mental 
attitude  may  seem  almost  incredible  to 
those  who  knew  him  only  as  a  scientific 
man  ;  it  does  not  seem  so  to  -the  few  who 
knew  anything  of  his  inner  life.  To  them 
the  impression  given  is  not  of  an  enemy 
changed  into  a  friend,  of  antagonism  al- 
tered into  submission ;  rather  is  it  of  one 
who  for  long  has  been  bearing  a  heavy 
burden  on  his  shoulders  bravely  and  pa- 
tiently, and  who  at  last  has  had  it  lifted 
from  him,  and  lifted  so  gradually  that  he 
could  not  tell  the  exact  moment  when  he 
found  it  gone,  and  himself  standing  like 
the  Pilgrim  of  the  never-to-be-forgotten 
story,  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  with  Three 
Shining  Ones  coming  to  greet  him."^ 

Lastly,  it    should    be  remembered   that 
this  change  from  Agnosticism  to  Christi- 

^  "  Life  and  Letters  of  George  John  Romanes,"  p.  372. 

'Ubid.,  p.  379.  '^  Ibid.,  p.  382. 

104 


Energy 


anity  was  not  due  to  any  decline  in  intel- 
lectual vigor,  but  was  the  deliberate  act  of 
ripened  powers  and  mature  judgment.  In 
the  obituary  notice  written  for  the  Royal 
Society,  Dr.  Burdon  Sanderson  says  :  "  Up 
to  the  end  he  preserved  not  only  his  men- 
tal vigor,  but  the  keenness  of  his  interest 
in  his  scientific  pursuits." 

One  cannot  help  thinking  with  regret 
how  much  lasting  value  might  have  been 
added  to  the  helpful  and  illustrious  career 
of  Huxley,  if  when  he  quarreled  with  ec- 
clesiasticism  he  too  had  turned  to  a  patient 
search  for  the  faith  that  satisfies,  to  be 
guided  at  last  to  the  school  of  Christ. 

I  think  there  are  many  who  do  not  know 
that  what  Gladstone  has  said  of  the  master 

minds  among  men  of  affairs, 

.     1      ^         r  r     •  Attitude  of 

IS  also  true  of  men  of  science  : 

the  vast  majority  of  the  lead-  ^^®  Leaders 
ers  in  all  departments  are  Christian  men. 
The  desperate  and  continued  efforts  that 
are  made  to  produce  the  impression  that 
science  discredits  Christianity  are  mainly 
the  work  of  men  who  have  no  real  knowl- 
edge of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity;  it 
105 


Ideas  from  J^Iature 


is  a  work  seldom  joined  in  by  any  one 
who  could  be  called  a  master  in  science. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  ranks  of  all  the 
sciences  contain  men  unsurpassed  in  genius 
and  attainments,  holding  that  the  author 
of  nature  is  the  God  of  the  Bible,  men 
who  freely  testify  to  the  truth  and  value  of 
Christianity. 

Turning  to  the  past  we  have  the  illus- 
trious names  of  Kepler,  Newton,  Pascal, 
Herschel,  Buckland,  Faraday,  Miller,  Brew- 
ster. Among  their  worthy  successors,  yet 
living  or  but  lately  passed  away,  may  be 
singled  out  Guyot,  Joseph  Henry,  Asa 
Gray,  Clerk-Maxwell,  Carpenter,  Balfour 
Stewart,  Sir  James  Paget,  Sir  George 
Stokes,  Sir  Andrew  Clark,  Adams,  Lock- 
yer.  Young,  Lord  Kelvin.  Among  chem- 
ists of  high  repute  are  Sir  H.  E.  Roscoe, 
of  England,  and  Professor  Cooke,  of  Har- 
vard. Among  geologists,  Geikie,  the  first 
authority  in  Great  Britain  ;  James  D.  Dana, 
Louis  Agassiz,  and  Sir  Wm.  Dawson,  in 
America.  These  and  many  others  rank- 
ing beside   or  next  after  them,  show  by 

their  Christian  faith  that  nothing  has  yet 
io6 


Energy 


been  discovered  by  scientific  research  which 
renders  a  belief  in  God  unreasonable,  or  in 
any  sense  unscientific. 

More  than  this  is  true.  The  free  dis- 
cussions now  going  on  as  the  real  bearings 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  become  more 
apparent,  and  the  keen  scrutiny  of  natural 
selection  and  other  explanations  of  the 
method  of  evolution  in  the  light  of  extend- 
ed observation,  tend  to  emphasize  the  de- 
pendence of  nature  on  God,  and  illustrate 
anew  the  wisdom  of  Bacon's  words  :  "  It 
is  true  that  a  little  philosophy  inclineth 
man's  mind  to  atheism ;  but  depth  in  phi- 
losophy bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  re- 
hgion." 

That  the  progress  of  knowledge  has 
not  weakened  the  force  of  these  words  we' 
have  the  testimony  of  the  foremost  living 
representative  of  science,  a  man  who  has 
won  the  honor  and  gratitude  of  the  world. 

Lord  Kelvin,  a  president  of  the  British 
Association,  president  of  the  Royal  Soci- 
ety, has  also  been  chairman  of  the  Chris- 
tian Evidence  Society.     Speaking  in  the 

latter  capacity  he  said  : 
107 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


"  I  have  long  felt  that  there  was  a  gen- 
eral impression  in  the  non-scientific  world 
that  the  scientific  world  believes  science 
has  discovered  ways  of  explaining  all  the 
facts  of  nature  without  adopting  any  defi- 
nite belief  in  a  Creator.  I  have  never 
doubted  that  that  impression  was  utterly 
groundless."  ^ 

These  are  Clerk-Maxwell's  words  :  ''  I 
have  looked  into  most  philosophical  sys- 
tems, and  I  have  seen  that  none  of  them  will 
work  without  a  God."  -  His  biographer 
says  of  him  :  ''  For  more  than  half  of  his 
brief  life  he  held  a  prominent  position  in 
the  very  foremost  rank  of  natural  philoso- 
phers. In  private  life  he  was  one  of  the 
most  lovable  of  men,  a  sincere  and  unos- 
tentatious Christian." 

Tyndall  tells  of  dining  with  Faraday ; 
before  dinner  Faraday  said  grace,  Tyn- 
dall says  :  ''  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  call 
his  prayer  a  '  saying  '  of  grace.  .  .  In  the 
language  of  Scripture  it  might  be  de- 
scribed as  the  petition  of  a  son  into  whose 

1  "  Report  of  Chr.  Evidence  Society,"  1889,  p.  45. 
''  "Life,"  p.  426. 

108 


Energy 


heart  God  had  sent  the  Spirit  of  his  Son, 
and  who,  with  absolute  trust,  asked  a  bless- 
ing of  his  father."  ^ 

Tyndall  seems  to  have  regarded  Fara- 
day with  more  than  filial  devotion  ;  and  it 
was  no  mere  mild  spiritual  goodness  that 
won  his  admiration.  He  says  of  him  : 
''  Here,  surely,  is  a  strong  man.  .  .  Un- 
derneath his  sweetness  and  gentleness  was 
the  heat  of  a  volcano,"  and  he  calls  him  : 
"Just  and  faithful  knight  of  God."  ^ 

Michael  Faraday  was  one  of  the  few 
who  in  any  generation  can  lay  claim  to  the 
title  of  philosopher.  He  believed  in  God, 
not  merely  the  God  of  the  philosopher,  an 
intellectual  abstraction  receding  from  us 
as  we  strive  to  approach,  but  the  God  of 
the  Christian,  the  Heavenly  Father,  one 
who  invites  us  to  draw  near,  who  asks  us 
to  open  the  door  of  our  hearts  to  him,  yet 
who  grows  grander  and  holier  as  we  feel 
after  him  and  find  him. 

There  is  abroad  a  spurious  reverence 
which  would  destroy  all  helpfulness  in  re- 

1  "Fragments  of  Science,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  420. 

2  "Faraday  as  a  Discoverer,"  pp.  37,  171. 

109 


Ideas  from  plature 


ligion,  one  that  forbids  us  to  apply  any 
terms  to  the  Author  of  nature  except  the 
most  abstract  and  indefinite  ones.  This, 
vv^e  are  told,  is  necessary  in  order  to  avoid 
the  error  of  attributing  human  character- 
istics to  the  divine.  Such  warnings  against 
anthropomorphism  generally  amount  to 
this,  that  we  must  empty  our  words  of  all 
the  significance  they  have  for  us  before 
we  use  them  in  speaking  of  God,  a  course 
that  reduces  God  to  the  unreal  and  religion 
to  indifferentism. 

On  the  contrary,  the  Bible  has  shown 
an  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  human 
soul  that  human  philosophy  has  been  un- 
able to  attain,  and  in  it  the  words  em- 
ployed to  express  the  attributes  of  God 
are  those  whose  strength  and  beauty  have 
been  made  known  to  us  by  the  holiest  and 
most  familiar  experiences  of  human  life. 
"  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so 
the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  him." 
''  As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth,  so 
will  I  comfort  you."  ''I  have  called  you 
friends."  This  conception  of  God  as  the 
Heavenly  Father,  the  Divine  Friend,  is 
no 


Energy 

one  which  man  need  never  mistake,  can 
never  outgrow.  It  will  always  stand  above 
him  to  help  him  upward,  whether  he  tills 
the  field  or  guides  the  progress  of  the 
world.  The  minds  foremost  in  science 
have  not  left  it  behind. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  scientist,  as 
such,  is  not  peculiarly  fitted  to  act  as  judge 
in  matters  of  religion.  There  is  reason 
in  this ;  no  one  will  hope  to  establish  the 
truth  of  Christianity  by  counting  votes,  or 
by  an  array  of  great  names,  because  we 
know  that  there  are  men  of  eminence  in 
science,  as  in  other  departments  of  learn- 
ing, who  do  not  subscribe  to  the  Christian 
faith. 

Of  these,  it  should  be  said  in  passing, 
not  a  few  have  never  thoroughly  studied 
the  highest  expression  of  religious  truth 
as  we  have  it  in  the  life  and  teachings  of 
Christ.  This  was  the  case  with  Darwin. 
He  received  many  letters  intended  to  draw 
from  him  some  expression  of  faith  in  the 
great  doctrines  of  religion.  His  uniform 
answer  was,  in  effect :  "  I  feel  in  some 
degree  unwilling  to  express  myself  publicly 
III 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


on  religious  subjects,  as  I  do  not  feel  that 
I  have  thought  deeply  enough  to  justify  any 
publicity.  .  .  Now  I  have  never  system- 
atically thought  much  on  religion  in  re- 
lation to  science,  or  on  morals  in  relation 
to  society."  ^ 

With  the  majority  of  active  opponents 
of  Christianity,  the  case  is  quite  different. 
They  hold  up  a  miserable  caricature  of 
Christian  teachings,  and  proceed  to  de- 
molish this  caricature  as  though  they  were 
destroying  Christian  truth.  This  deceives 
mainly  those  who  are  willing  to  be  de- 
ceived, for  all  fair-minded  men  agree  that 
arguments  against  the  perversions  of  a 
doctrine  are  of  no  avail  as  arguments 
against  the  truth  of  that  doctrine. 

But  the  Christian  scientist,  and  he  alone, 
can  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  one  grave 
question  :  "  Does  science  render  belief  in 
Christianity  unreasonable  }  "  There  are 
many  who  declare  that  it  does,  and  it  is  in 
this  case  that  the  emphatic  negative  from 

1  "Life,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  275,  276.  Very  significant, 
as  revealing  belief,  is  a  letter  from  Darwin  to  Romanes, 
published  in  the   "Life  "  of  the  latter,  p.  88. 

112 


Energy 


such  men  as  Newton,  Faraday,  Clerk- 
Maxwell,  Kelvin,  Dawson,  is  an  assurance 
of  the  utmost  value  to  us.  They  have 
tried  both,  tried  them  side  by  side  during 
a  lifelong  experience ;  their  deliberate  ver- 
dict has  immense  weight. 

The  opinions  of  men  who  are  at  once 
candid  and  able  can  never  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  us,  and  admissions  made  by 
some  of  these  who  do  not  rank  themselves 
as  Christians,  often  help  the  puzzled  in- 
quirer by  sweeping  away  from  his  path  a 
host  of  the  most  popular  objections  to  be- 
lief in  Christ. 

But  if  the  study  of  nature  not  only 
allows,  but   favors    such   belief,  how  is  it 

that    we     not     infrequently 

,  4.1,        r    4.-        -^11    Glauses  of 

hear    the    adjective    infidel 

joined  to  the  substantive  ^^  ^  ^ 
science .?  There  is  no  such  thing  as  in- 
fidel science,  though  there  are  infidels 
who  would  gladly  engage  science  to  prop 
up  their  doubts;  there  are  objections  of 
science,  falsely  so  called,  and  vain  philoso- 
phies, but  science  truly  so  called,  is  not 
answerable  for  any  of  them. 
H  113 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


The  causes  of  skepticism  are  various. 
Not  all  men  are  anxious  to  find  truth  ;  not 
all  are  willing  to  accept  it  when  they  find 
it.  The  prime  cause  of  defective  faith  is 
a  defect  of  will.  The  claims  of  God  are 
supreme — heart,  brain,  hand,  everything. 
Many  do  not  wish  to  acknowledge  this 
claim ;  it  humbles  the  pride  of  the  human 
intellect  that  would  be  sufficient  to  itself, 
interferes  with  what  they  call  their  free- 
dom of  action,  demands  that  life  be  de- 
voted to  the  service  of  God  ;  they  have 
other  plans.  They  will  not  consider  that 
God's  spiritual  laws,  like  the  natural,  are 
revelations  to  us  of  the  conditions  to 
which  we  have  been  created  subject,  and 
only  in  obeying  them  can  we  be  free ;  that 
in  fact  the  evident  purpose  of  our  free- 
dom is  that  we  may  find  out  what  is  true, 
in  order  that  we  may  do  what  is  right. 
Free  thinking  is  good  only  when  it  leads 
to  right  thinking,  for  then  only  is  it  free. 
Much  that  is  boastfully  put  forward  as 
''free  thought"  is  in  reality  thought  in 
bondage  to  human  frailty. 

An  unwillingness  to  give  the  heart  leads 
114 


Energy 

men  to  try  to  justify  the  refusal.  Some 
seek  refuge  in  metaphysical  subtleties,  and 
profess  to  doubt  what  they  are  asserting 
belief  in  by  every  thought  and  act  of  life ; 
others  collect  the  objections  to  Christian 
belief  that  have  been  accumulated  during 
many  centuries,  and  give  their  attitude  that 
strange  name,  "thinking  for  themselves." 
The  man  who  follows  Paul  or  Calvin 
or  Wesley,  is  at  least  as  much  an  inde- 
pendent thinker  as  one  who  commits  the 
guidance  of  his  mind  to  Hume  or  Spencer, 
Mill  or  Ingersoll,  and  the  former  has  the 
better  leader.  There  is  nothing  especially 
"liberal"  in  rejecting  the  Bible. 

Not  a  few  have  ranked  themselves  as 
disciples  of  Darwin,  only  because  they 
have  received  an  impression,  often  as 
vague  as  it  is  false,^  that  in  some  way  that 
great  naturalist  has  rendered  belief  in  God 
no  longer  necessary.  When  Darwin's 
theory  of  the  origin  of  species  was  first 
published  it  was  hailed  by  materialists  as 

^  In  my  most  extreme  fluctuations  I  have  never  been 
an  atheist  in  the  sense  of  denying  the  existence  of  a 
God. — '■'■Darwhi's  Life^^''   Vol.  I..,  p.  2^14. 
115 


Ideas  from  ]\[atiire 


a  confirmation  of  their  views,  and  it  was 
hastily  assumed  that  natural  selection  had 
set  aside  the  argument  from  design,  na- 
ture's clearest  testimony  to  the  existence 
of  an  intelligent  Creator.^  There  were 
naturalists  who  saw  the  fallacy  of  this 
conclusion  from  the  first.  Huxley  ad- 
mitted manfully  that  evolution  leaves  the 
argument  from  design  just  where  it  found 
it. 

A  few  Christian  scholars  recognized  in 
the  new  teachings  fresh  revelations  of  the 
glory  of  God,  but  the  many  were  bewil- 
dered by  the  clamor  of  debate,  and  hastily 
committed  themselves  to  a  denial  of  the 
truth  of  the  theory,  instead  of  giving  it  a 
fair  examination.  It  is  so  easy  to  brand  a 
doctrine  that  offends  our  preconceived  no- 
tions as  "  contrary  to  the  Bible"  ;  but  that 
breaks  the  command  to  *'  prove  all  things," 
the  only  way  in  which  we  may  find  what 
is  the  good  which  we  are  to  ''hold  fast." 

^  The  design  argument  is  not  an  instrument  of  scien- 
tific research  ;  it  is  the  only  rational  explanation  of  the 
ordered  relations  between  the  different  parts  of  nature, 
the  harmony  which  science  reveals. 
ii6 


Energy 


I  trust  we  are  growing  wiser  ;  but  we  have 
yet  cause  to  heed  Bishop  Butler's  warning 
not  to  claim  for  the  Bible  what  it  does 
not  claim  for  itself.  As  we  rid  ourselves, 
one  by  one,  of  human  improvements  on 
divine  works  and  ways,  we  are  enabled  to 
see  more  clearly  that  the  rejection  of 
Christianity  finds  no  warrant  in  any  dis- 
covery of  science. 

There  are  other  causes  that  hinder  men 
from  coming  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
and  one  is  the  preoccupation  of  the  mind. 
We  may  keep  ourselves  ''too  busy"  with 
the  pursuits  of  life,  legitimate  in  them- 
selves, to  afford  time  to  consider.  The 
day  may  be  so  filled  with  the  care  of  other 
things,  business,  teaching,  study,  recrea- 
tion, as  to  leave  not  even  moments  for 
sober  thought.  We  have  been  warned 
against  this  as  one  of  the  causes  why  men 
miss  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  stu- 
dent of  nature  is  especially  in  danger  from 
this  source,  as  his  pursuits  are  so  absorb- 
ing and  yield  results  so  valuable. 

Man  is  closely  linked  with  material  na- 
ture, that  sum  of  created  things  made 
117 


Ideas  from  ]N[ature 


known  through  sense.  His  life  is  depend- 
ent on  material  conditions,  and  he  must 
know  something  of  them  or  perish.  He 
studies  them,  impelled  by  this  necessity 
seconded  by  an  innate  desire  to  know,  and 
the  splendid  rewards  of  his  study  are  seen 
when  we  contrast  the  material  civilization 
of  New  England  with  the  squalor  of  the 
savage  who  once  inhabited  it ;  the  contrast 
is  not  merely  in  material  things,  it  is  a 
contrast  between  the  lore  of  the  medicine 
man  and  the  knowledge  and  culture  of  a 
Rumford  or  a  Dana.  For  the  study  of 
nature  we  have  the  highest  warrant,  for 
nature  is  the  creation  of  God. 

It  is  not  strange  then,  that  men  have 
devoted  their  lives  to  such  uses.  Knowl- 
edge of  nature  has  grown  slowly  at  first, 
for  the  reason  that  man  persists  in  carry- 
ing with  him  a  head  full  of  preconceived 
notions  and  in  trying  to  find  realities  to 
match  his  whims.  The  history  of  science 
furnishes  one  of  the  most  instructive 
chapters  in  the  study  of  human  nature, 
showing  as  it  does  how  hard  it  is  for  us  to 
lay  aside  the  childish  mind  and  acquire  the 


ii8 


•    Energy 

childlike  mind,  the  indispensable  condition 
of  gaining  truth. 

But  science  has  flourished  where  man 
was  free  ;  has  flourished  most  healthfully 
in  lands  that  favored  an  open  Bible.  Now 
the  time  is  forever  past  when  even  a  Hum- 
boldt can  be  a  representative  of  universal 
science.  A  man  of  many  acquirements,  a 
man  of  genius,  may  investigate  only  a  very 
small  part  of  the  great  field  with  anything 
that  can  be  called  thoroughness,  and  at  the 
end  he  will  be  forced  to  confess  that  he 
needs  to  carry  over  his  work  into  eternity, 
not  because  he  has  been  disappointed  in 
finding  so  little,  but  because  he  finds  so 
much ;  and  for  every  question  he  settles  a 
score  of  new  ones  start  up  demanding  so- 
lution. This  is  the  explanation  of  the 
splendid  humility  of  Newton,  and  others 
of  like  stamp. ^    Nature  is  greater  than  our 

^  I  do  feel  profoundly  grateful.  But  when  I  think 
how  infinitely  little  is  all  that  I  have  done,  I  cannot 
feel  pride  ;  I  only  see  the  great  kindness  of  my  scien- 
tific comrades,  and  of  all  my  friends,  in  crediting  me 
for  so  much.  One  word  characterizes  the  most  strenu- 
ous of  the  efforts  for  the  advancement  of  science  that  1 
119 


Ideas  from  plature 


wildest  dreams.  Nature  knowledge  may 
be  compared  to  a  spark  struck  in  the  dark 
from  which  a  feeble  flame  is  kindled. 
Ready  hands  feed  the  flame ;  succeeding 
generations  supply  it  with  fresh  fuel.  Man 
learns  to  render  its  light  permanent,  to  in- 
crease its  briiiiance  ;  and  we  rejoice  in  all 
the  wonders  revealed  within  the  sphere  of 
its  illumination,  bask  ourselves  in  its  light, 
and  enjoy  its  warmth.  But  the  widening 
sphere  of  the  known  only  reveals  the 
greater  area  of  the  unknown,  into  which 
science  sends  its  searchlight  and  finds  no 
hint  of  a  limit.  No  wonder  that  in  such 
pursuit  the  eager  mind  may  lose  all  thought 
of  other  things. 

It  is  plain  then  that  the  student  of  na- 
ture may  easily  become  so  absorbed  in  his 
daily  work  that  his  mind  is  wholly  pre-oc- 
cupied  and  he  is  unready  to  consider  other 

have  made  perseveringly  during  fifty-five  years  ;  that 
word  is  failure.  I  know  no  more  of  electric  and  mag. 
netic  force  or  of  the  relation  between  ether,  electricity, 
and  ponderable  matter,  or  of  chemical  affinity,  than  I 
knew  and  tried  to  teach  to  my  students  of  natural 
philosophy  fifty  years  ago. — Lord  Kelvin,  in  "i^V^- 
ture, ' '  June  2j,  iSg6. 

I20 


Energy 

pursuits  that  reveal  truth,  or  other  truth 
besides  that  which  he  seeks,  or  even  the 
bearings  of  what  he  has  discovered  on  the 
supreme  questions  of  human  Hfe.  True, 
he  is  bhnded,  but  it  is  Hke  a  blindness  pro- 
duced by  gazing  at  the  sun.  Worst  of  all, 
those  who  try  to  convince  him  of  his  error 
very  commonly  begin  by  denying  what  he 
knows  to  be  true,  or  by  belittling  what  he 
sees  to  be  great. 

Yet  science  gives  to  its  thoughtful  dis- 
ciple a  warning  against  the  danger  of  this 
narrowness  of  admitting  as  truth  only  that 
which  can  be  seen  and  handled.  The 
verities  of  science  are  held,  not  by  sight, 
but  by  faith.  This  does  not  refer  to 
theories,  such  as  evolution,  the  undulatory 
theory  of  light,  or  the  atomic  theory. 
Every  student  of  science  knows  that  these 
are  held  as  convenient  explanations  in  the 
highest  degree  probable,  good  working  hy- 
potheses, yet  not  science,  only  specula- 
tions. The  verities  held  by  faith  are 
those  necessary  inferences  which  reason 
demands.  Place  two  elements  together 
under    the  required  circumstances ;    they 

121 


Ideas  from  jlature 


combine  and  form  a  new  thing  in  which 
can  be  distinguished  none  of  the  indi- 
vidual qualities  of  its  originals.  You  at 
once  understand  that  you  are  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  power  capable  of  producing  this 
effect,  and  you  name  the  cause  chemical 
affinity;  you  do  not  know  what  it  is,  but 
you  do  know  that  it  is,  and  as  your 
study  extends  you  learn  more  and  more 
about  its  effects,  its  methods,  and  how 
thoroughly  we  may  rely  on  its  uniform 
action.  This  is  scientific  faith,  the  evi- 
dence of  things  not  seen ;  and  it  is  by 
such  faith  we  are  enabled  to  unite  our 
knowledge  of  facts  and  form  a  science. 

Religion  is  not  alone  in  requiring  faith ; 
all  truth  makes  a  similar  demand.  That 
the  faith  it  demands  may  yield  well- 
grounded  belief,  religion  offers  the  same 
method  of  verification  as  that  which  is 
most  relied  on  by  science,  the  experi- 
mental method. 

The  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  are 
various  and  converging.  One  line  of  evi- 
dence is  furnished  by  the  study  of  nature, 
whether  we  pursue  it  in  the  classroom,  or 

122 


Energy 


abroad  gather  the  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye. 
We  miss  the  highest  use  of  the  knowledge 
science  gives  if  we  fail  to  recognize  that 
science  itself  not  only  makes  it  reasonable 
to  believe  in  a  Maker,  but  cries  out  for 
God,  affirms  that  he  is,  and  that  he  is 
knowable  as  other  realities  are  knowable, 
through  manifestation. 

The  eye  notes  changes  going  on  in  ob- 
jects presented  to  it,  as  the  action  of  a 
magnet  on  fragments  of  iron,  or  of  one 
magnet  on  another.  Reason  at  once  com- 
pels us  to  believe  in  something  the  eye 
cannot  see  nor  any  other  sense  apprehend, 
a  force  which  is  the  cause  of  the  observed 
effects.  When  we  advance  a  little  farther 
and  find  that  we  are  unable  even  to  form 
a  mental  conception  of  the  nature  and 
mode  of  action  of  this  force  we  do  not  for 
that  reason  give  up  our  belief  in  its  exist- 
ence. We  hold  it  by  faith,  faith  founded 
on  experience,  by  an  act  in  which  the  mind 
lays  hold  on  a  truth  which  it  cannot  wholly 
comprehend. 

We  find  that  this  and  other  forces  oper- 
ating in  nature  are  regular,  so  by  observing 
123 


Ideas  from  ]N[ature 


what  effects  they  produce  under  given 
conditions,  we  may  always  secure  similar 
effects  by  reproducing  those  conditions. 
The  study  of  things  sensible  enables  us  to 
apprehend  that  which  lies  beyond  sense, 
to  reach  a  knowledge  of  those  laws  of 
nature  to  which  our  lives  must  conform. 
These  laws,  each  uniting  many  diverse 
phenomena  under  one  natural  cause,  en- 
able us  to  reach  that  unity  which  we  call 
a  science,  the  limit  of  this  mode  of  inves- 
tigation :  but  not  the  limit  of  man's  power 
to  discover  truth. 

Reason  compels  the  mind  to  take  a  wider 
range,  to  ask  how  matter  and  force  came 
to  be,  how  order  and  law  have  been  estab- 
lished and  maintained,  what  put  such  valu- 
able helpers  within  the  reach  of  man  and 
gave  man  power  of  brain  and  hand  to 
reach  and  use  them  ? 

If  we  begin  to  question  about  the  origin 
and  meaning  of  the  humblest  object  or 
simplest  process  in  nature,  there  is  found 
no  place  of  rest  for  the  mind  until  we  reach 
an  intelligent  first  Cause,  the  only  suffi- 
cient cause  of  an  intelligible  universe. 
124 


Energy 


The  man  of  science  who  is  so  ready  to 
caution  us  against  the  folly  of  believing 
in  uncaused  events,  should  not  reprove  us 
when  we  conclude  that  the  order  of  the 
universe  must  have  a  cause. 

That  order  is  so  admirable,  so  manifold, 
so  harmonious  in  its  correspondences  be- 
tween parts  varied  and  remote ;  it  answers 
to  our  intelligence  so  completely  as  knowl- 
edge grows ;  it  shows  such  evident  antici- 
pation of  future  events,  even  provision  for 
repair  of  injuries  due  to  accidents  that 
may  not  occur ;  it  offers  so  many  helps  by 
which  man  may  improve  his  condition,  so 
much  by  which  man  becomes  the  fashioner 
of  his  own  life,  that  we  feel  compelled  to 
attribute  to  that  cause  intelligence,  power, 
and  goodness  in  the  highest  degree. 

Nature  furnishes  a  vantage  ground  from 
which  we  may  see  beyond  the  natural. 
Scientific  naturalism  furnishes  the  data 
for  rational  supernaturaHsm.  The  facts  of 
science  are  symbols,  literally  hieroglyphics, 
expressing  in  human  thought  that  central 
truth  which  fills  the  universe  with  light, 
"  God  is."  Religion,  which  alone  sur- 
125 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


passes  this  thought  in  its  supreme  revela- 
tion, *'God  is  Love,"  rightly  takes  the 
being  of  God  for  granted. 

"For  the  invisible  things  of  him  since 
the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen, 
being  perceived  through  the  things  that 
are  made,  even  his  everlasting  power  and 
divinity"  (Rom.  i  :  20). 


126 


IV 
iSAiaRAL  LAW  AMD  MIRACLE 


Prove  all  things;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good. 

—Paul 


IV 


Science  and  religion  take  directly  oppo- 
site views  of  nature.  When  the  student 
of  science  allows  himself  to  become  wholly 
absorbed  in  his  chosen  pursuits,  he  culti- 
vates a  habit  of  mind  which  may  cause  him 
to  miss  truth  even  more  valuable  than  that 
which  he  seeks.  The  Christian,  regarding 
things  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  re- 
ligion, is  often  sorely  perplexed  by  the 
received  doctrines  of  science,  which  never- 
theless his  reason  forbids  him  to  set  aside. 
This  perplexity  is  harmful  and  should  be 
removed,  if  possible,  for  next  to  Christi- 
anity science  is  the  world's  greatest  bene- 
factor. The  perplexity  is  not  only  harmful, 
it  is  unnecessary. 

Religion  starts  with  a  first  cause,  God, 

and  interprets  nature  as  his     .         , 

1       c  •  u     •         VI,  Two  YieWs 

work.     Science  begms  with 

nature,  studies  its    phenom-         J      ^^® 

ena,  strives  to  '* explain"  them  by  referring 

I  ■  129 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


them  to  natural  causes,  i,  e.y  the  conditions 
which  uniformly  accompany  them,  and 
gives  as  the  grand  result  of  its  investiga- 
tion the  conclusion  that  every  event  in  na- 
ture whose  relations  it  has  been  able  to 
trace  is  but  one  link  in  an  unbroken  se- 
quence of  cause  and  effect,  our  modern 
principle  of  continuity.  This  conclusion 
is  unavoidable ;  we  all  accept  it  as  a  cor- 
rect statement  of  the  ordinary  course  of 
events. 

According  to  the  religious  view,  the 
lightning  is  the  fire  of  God,  the  thunder 
his  voice.  But  what  do  we  mean  when  we 
say,  "  It  is  so  hot  to-day,  I  think  there  will 
be  a  thunder  shower".?  We  mean  that 
even  in  this,  one  of  the  most  mysterious  of 
the  manifestations  of  energy  in  nature,  all 
goes  on  according  to  exact  and  unvarying 
laws,  as  much  as  in  the  flowing  of  a  river, 
or  the  falling  of  a  stone.  In  fact,  we  do 
not  deem  it  unwise  to  provide  even  our 
churches  with  lightning  rods. 

Now  this  vision  of  invariable  law  may  so 

grow  upon  us  as  to  bewilder  us  wholly,  may 

overshadow  our  faith  in   human   freedom 
130 


platural  Lawr  and  JVIiracle 


and  Divine  providence.  I  think  that  with 
many  the  difficulty  is  simply  a  passing  from 
one  idea  which  the  intellect  enforces  to 
another  which  the  heart  clings  to,  with  the 
lingering  fear  that  they  are  not  only  oppo- 
site, but  hostile.  To  any  but  those  who 
hold  religious  truth  by  a  marked  spiritual 
experience,  not  past  but  present,  this  un- 
certainty is  liable  to  bring  an  eclipse  of 
faith,  as  it  has  to  many.  Christianity 
demands  a  surrender  of  the  intellect  truly, 
but  does  it  require  us  to  stultify  reason  ? 

Are  God  and  nature  then  at  strife  ? 

It  will  be  quite  worth  while  for  us  to  fall 
back  on  the  very  simplest  considerations, 
on  the  knowledge  gained  by  experience  of 
familiar  things,  the  belief  which  our  un- 
studied speech  betrays,  to  determine  for 
ourselves  whether  these  two  views,  the 
religious  and  the  scientific,  are  mutually 
exclusive. 

For  instance,  a  strange  plant  springs  up 

in    the   garden,  bears    a   beautiful   flower 

which  attracts  your  attention.     You  do  not 

know  how  it  came  there,  and  are  curious  to 

131 


Ideas  from  jiature 


find  out.  A  child  fresh  from  the  story  of 
creation  in  Genesis  has  an  explanation  and 
cannot  understand  your  perplexity  :  ''  God 
made  the  plant  grow  there."  That  is  the 
religious  view. 

You  know  that  some  seed,  or  root,  or 
cutting  capable  of  producing  the  plant  be- 
came embedded  there  and  has  grown  up 
through  natural  causes.  You  look  at  the 
child  and  smile  indulgently  at  the  simplicity 
of  his  faith.  Well,  that  is  the  scientific 
view,  including  the  smile. 

Yet  we  also  beheve  that  ''God  made." 
Our  faith  is  fixed  there,  and  science  author- 
izes that  faith.  But  we  believe  as  well  in 
the  uniform  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  in 
nature,  the  general  uniformity  of  its  pro- 
cesses. How  are  we  harmonizing  these 
two  ideas  ?  Some  are  keeping  them  both — 
faith  in  God  is  too  precious  to  be  parted 
with,  that  fire  will  burn  is  too  certain  to 
be  questioned — and  their  spiritual  life  is 
an  effort  to  hold  the  two  apart  for  fear  that 
either  will  destroy  the  other.  Can  they  be 
reconciled  ?  They  do  not  need  to  be  rec- 
onciled ;  the  religious  view  of  nature  and 
132 


ptatural  Law  and  JVEiracle 


the  scientific  view  are  different  views  of 
the  same  thing  from  opposite  sides ;  in 
this  sense  only  are  they  opposite.  Do 
not  try  to  hold  them  apart ;  let  them  meet 
and  mingle ;  knowledge  will  be  all  the 
clearer  and  faith  all  the  stronger. 

It  is  indeed  true  of  religion  and  science, 
as  is  often  said,  that  each  has  its  own  prov- 
ince  and  methods,   and    we       ^r 

,  ,,         How  to 

must  not  try  to  apply  meth-       * 

ods  where  they  are  not  ap-  Iia^mC)nize 
plicable.  They  are  separate  lines  of  mental 
activity,  but  they  are  not  parallels  whose 
only  requirement  of  each  other  is  that  they 
be  kept  forever  apart.  They  are  ordinates 
springing  from  a  common  origin  in  the 
divine.  All  truth  is  one  and  harmonious  ; 
whatever  is  found  to  be  true  in  one  depart- 
ment must  supplement  truth  in  every  other 
department.  God  has  not  called  us  to 
confusion  in  the  intellectual  sphere  of  our 
being  any  more  than  in  the  emotional. 
We  shall  soonest  end  strife  between  reason 
and  faith  by  giving  the  verities  of  both 
their  fullest  expression,  and  letting  them 
act  and  react  upon  each  other  with  all  their 
^33 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


energy,  for  so  we  shall  soonest  learn  how 
much  of  our  difficulty  comes  from  our  own 
misconception. 

Watch  a  printing-press  striking  off  a 
great  "daily."  Here  it  seizes  the  end  of 
a  roll  of  paper,  miles  long ;  there  it  deliv- 
ers the  printed  sheet  at  the  rate  of  many 
thousand  copies  an  hour.  Between  is  a 
bewildering  array  of  revolving  cylinders. 
Take  up  one  of  the  papers  and  examine  it: 
four,  eight,  perhaps  more,  pages  crowded 
with  the  latest  news  of  the  world,  the 
paper  cut,  printed  on  both  sides,  pasted, 
folded.  Did  the  press  print  the  paper  ? 
Yes,  and  no.  The  press  had  to  be  sup- 
plied with  power  from  the  engine  room. 
Then  the  press  and  the  engine  printed  the 
paper  ?  Again  yes,  and  no.  In  wondering 
at  the  "  automatic  "  machine  we  are  really 
paying  a  tribute  to  the  genius  of  its  maker ; 
when  we  watch  wheels  and  levers  in  mo- 
tion, we  see  the  manifested  activity  of  a 
thinking  mind.  Mind  printed  the  paper, 
but  it  was  mind  using  as  instruments  the 
tools  that  mind  had  contrived.  We  may 
very  profitably  study  the  ''  evolution  of  the 
134 


platural  Law  and  JVIiracle 


printing  press,"  going  back  to  the  first  rude 
hint  of  its  becoming,  back  to  the  origin  of 
the  implements  by  which  its  parts  were 
fashioned,  and  thus  we  shall  discover  addi- 
tional proof  that  it  is  a  product  of  mind. 
Mind  planned  and  started  its  evolution; 
mind  presided  over  every  stage  of  its  un- 
folding. 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  plant  in  'the 
garden.  It  sprang  from  a  seed,  under  the 
conditions  of  heat,  moisture,  and  darkness. 
These  conditions  did  not  make  it  grow ; 
the  seed  itself  must  have  possessed  a  cer- 
tain energy  which  we  call  vitality,  obtained 
by  inheritance.  Nor  are  all  these  together 
sufficient  to  explain  the  growth  of  the 
plant.  These  necessary  antecedents  and 
conditions  had  to  be  caused;  had  to  be 
nicely  adjusted  and  co-ordinated  before 
that  wondrous  cycle  of  growth,  from  seed 
to  the  plant  bearing  seed  in  itself,  could  be 
repeated.  This  is  a  condition  of  things 
that  could  be  originated  and  maintained 
only  by  an  intelligence  able  to  understand 
and  fitted  to  desire  what  is  implied  in  co- 
ordination, a  power  capable  of  securing  it. 
135 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


What  made  the  plant  grow?  The  answer 
is  inevitable  :  Mind  made  it  grow. 

If  we  choose  to  study  the  evolution  of 
the  plant,  tracing  it  back  through  its  varied 
changes,  searching  through  the  many  gen- 
erations of  the  past  to  find  the  primordial 
germ  from  which  it  was  derived,  it  will 
become  more  and  more  evident  to  us  that 
the  evolution  was  designed,  begun,  and  car- 
ried out  by  Supreme  Mind. 

So  we  reach  the  answer  to  our  question, 

"What  made  the  plant  grow.?  "   from  the 

religious  side:    ''God    made 
K  Double    ^^^   pj^^^   g^^^_..     g^^   ^^^ 

/inswer  ^^^  reach  that  answer  from 
the  side  of  science.  It  has  pleased  the 
Creator  to  work  through  instruments,  and 
according  to  a  certain  order ;  matter  and 
energy  are  his  instruments,  natural  laws 
are  his  methods — orderly  because  he  is 
without  variableness  and  man  is  dependent. 
We  safely  rely  upon  the  regularity  of  na- 
ture, because  that  is  simply  to  rely  upon 
the  veracity  of  the  Creator.  It  is  be- 
cause man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God 

that  he  too  is  able  to  discover  those  meth- 
136 


jfatural  Law  and  ]VIiracIe 


ods  and  use  those  instruments  in  his  meas- 
ure. 

Science  then  is  the  study  of  methods  in 
nature  ;  that  is  its  province.  We  investi- 
gate a  given  event,  one  will  serve  for  all, 
say  the  sprouting  of  a  seed.  We  find  that 
certain  other  events  precede  or  accompany 
this  change,  and  if  any  one  of  these  is 
wanting  the  seed  will  not  sprout.  We  have 
come  to  call  these  invariable  antecedents, 
uniform  conditions,  the  ca?ises  of  the  sprout- 
ing of  the  seed.  It  is  found  also  that  in 
general  each  event  in  nature  is  the  effect 
of  preceding  events,  and  the  cause  of  other 
events  that  follow.  This  continuity  in  the 
succession  of  events  is  what  makes  it  possi- 
ble for  us  to  gain  some  real  knowledge  of 
the  world  in  which  we  live,  a  knowledge 
whose  value  can  scarcely  be  overrated.  Now 
it  is  clear  that  these  antecedents  and  con- 
ditions are  causes  only  in  a  very  limited 
sense  of  the  word  ;  yet,  as  this  is  the  sense 
in  which  it  is  commonly  employed,  we  may 
describe  them  as  proximate  causes,  second- 
ary causes,  or  natural  causes.  This  is  the 
meaning  in  which  the  word  cause  is  used 
137 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


in  science :  evidently  it  does  not  reach  the 
origin  and  source  of  efficiency. 

A  philosopher  noted  the  fall  of  an  apple 
and  asked  its  cause.  He  might  have 
given  either  of  two  answers,  "  God  made 
it  fall,"  or  "  Its  fall  was  due  to  natural 
causes."  While  admitting  the  first  as  an 
ultimate  truth,  he  recognized  the  second 
answer  as  also  true,  the  minister  of  a  glo- 
rious revelation  of  truth,  and  following  in 
the  path  it  indicated  was  able  to  complete 
the  long  course  of  investigation  resulting 
in  the  greatest  discovery  that  has  ever 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  man,  universal  gravita- 
tion. Let  us  not  be  puffed  up  for  one 
against  the  other  answer,  but  clearly  ap- 
prehend and  frankly  acknowledge  the  truth 
and  value  of  both. 

Religion  deals  with  ultimate  cause,  and 
makes  little  account  of  secondary  causes ; 
hence  the  direct  language  of  the  Bible  in 

accounting  for  an  event  :  God  made " 

Science  cannot  reach  ultimate  cause  at  all ; 
that  is  beyond  its  realm.  It  studies  nature 
as  it  appears,  discovers  the  order  of  events 
in  nature,  makes  known  natural  causes, 
138 


platural  Law  and  JVEiracIe 


but  in  so  doing  strengthens  the  demand  of 
reason  for  a  spiritual  first  cause. 

So,  when  we  ask  the  cause  of  the  growth 
of  a  plant,  or  any  other  process  in  nature, 
the  question  is  two-fold  and  the  answer  is 
two-fold  also.  ''  It  is  proximately  due  to 
the  action  of  natural  causes,  ultimately  due 
to  the  will  of  God,  whose  instruments 
natural  causes  are." 

Yet,  you  may  ask,  are  not  these  uniform 
methods  after  all  methods  of  the  inevitable, 
that   make  it   reasonable  to 
believe  in  a  Supreme  Ruler      ^ 
and  Maker  but  forbid  belief    ^^^^^^^'^^^ 
in  man's  freedom.  Divine  providence,  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  ?     Do  they  not  show  the 
impossibility  of  those  miracles  which  the 
Gospels  attribute  to  Christ,  works  so  inter- 
woven with  his  teachings  that  if  we  lose 
faith  in  the  one,  we  shall  soon  find  our- 
selves bereft  of  the  guidance  and  consolation 
of  the  other,  and  so  lose  the  best  thing  life 
has  to  offer  ? 

The  freedom  of  the  human  will  involves 
a  problem  that  yet  awaits  solution.      Hid- 
den  in  the  deeps  of  personality,  the  will 
139 


Ideas  from  ]N[atupe 


lies  too  close  to  us,  too  near  the  central 
mystery  of  our  being,  for  us  to  scrutinize 
it.  In  its  operations  as  in  its  essence  it  is 
no  doubt  a  riddle  too  hard  for  man  to  read. 
The  testimony  of  consciousness  that  we 
are  free  to  choose,  and  the  sense  of  respon- 
sibility for  our  own  actions  which  we  can- 
not shake  off,  assure  us  that  *'  Our  wills 
are  ours,"  but  when  we  come  to  inquire 
further  concerning  the  nature  and  origin 
of  that  dynamic  expression  of  character 
which  we  call  an  act  of  the  will,  we  are 
compelled  to  add,  "We  know  not  how."^ 

It  is  evident  that  our  relations  with  na- 
ture confirm  this  innate  belief  in  our  free- 
dom ;  though  we  are  limited  by  conditions 
and  greatly  influenced  by  surroundings, 
heredity  and  environment  are  not  all  that 
make  us  what  we  are.  The  last  considera- 
tion that  turns  the  scale,  that  decides  for 
this  rather  than  that,  is  our  own  choice, 
the  manifestation  of  our  own  individuality, 
as  we  have  molded  it  by  our  own  acts. 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  man  is  himself 
a    part    of    nature   and   therefore    bound. 


^  *'  In  Memoriam,' 
140 


jlatural  Law  and  JVEiracle 


When  we  give  the  term  nature  its  widest 
application  it  includes  all  existence  except 
the  Creator;  man  then,  is  a  part  of  na- 
ture, subject  to  its  laws. 

But  man,  a  soul,  finite  and  dependent, 
yet  a  soul,  stands  above  material  nature, 
including  his  bodily  share  of  it ;  in  this 
relation  he  is  himself  a  cause — a  super- 
natural cause.  One  reason  why  we  so 
often  draw  false  inferences  from  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  resistless  forces  and  unvarying 
laws  of  nature,  is  because  we  do  not  rightly 
estimate  the  familiar  fact  that  man  can 
interfere  with  the  workings  of  nature. 
Man  is  set  over  nature  ;  he  not  only  uses 
its  materials,  but  he  can  act  with  its  laws 
and  determine  their  operation  so  as  to  pro- 
duce results  which  would  not  have  been 
without  his  self-determined  activity.  Does 
he  shrink  from  the  winter's  cold  ?  He  en- 
closes a  portion  of  space  and  produces  in 
it  a  summer  temperature.  Is  his  arm  too 
feeble  for  its  tasks  ?  See  him  harness  the 
flowing  river  and  bid  it  grind  his  corn, 
draw  his  carriage,  turn  night  into  day  in 
his  streets  and  dwellings. 
141 


Ideas  from  ]Niatup« 


The  laws  of  nature  are  not  fetters  to 
bind  us;  from  them  are  wrought  the  in- 
struments of  our  power.  We  learn  their 
modes  of  action,  act  with  them,  and  cause 
new  effects.  The  hand  is  puny ;  gravita- 
tion enables  it  to  give  the  blow  of  the  trip- 
hammer. The  eye  is  feeble  ;  a  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  light  imparts  to  it  the  de- 
fining and  space-piercing  power  of  the 
microscope  and  the  telescope. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  laws  of  nature 
should  be  set  aside  or  "violated  "  in  order 
that  a  new  thing  may  arise  quite  outside 
the  regular  operation  of  natural  causes  ;  it 
is  only  necessary  that  an  intelligent  agent 
should  employ  those  laws.  Standing  at 
rest,  the  arm  naturally  gravitates  to  the 
side,  but  you  can  raise  it,  overcoming 
gravitation.  The  mind,  active  as  will,  ex- 
ercises a  control  over  the  muscles,  and  the 
operation  of  one  force  is  modified  by  an- 
other. A  man  falls,  stunned,  between  the 
rails  before  an  advancing  train.  He  is 
powerless  ;  gravitation  holds  him ;  the 
train,  too  near  to  be  stopped,  will  cer- 
tainly crush  him.  But  no,  a  bystander 
142 


]\[at3ural  Law^  and  ]V[iracIe 


rushes  in  and  drags  him  from  before  the 
wheels.  Where  man  is  so  evidently  free 
it  would  be  absurd  to  contend  that  God  is 
limited. 

We  come  then  to  inquire  how  this  view 
of  the  meaning  of  natural  law  affects  be- 
lief   in    Christian    miracles/ 
acts  of  divine  power  in  hu-  ^^^unds  of 
man    history    quite    outside      J  ^^  C  e 
the  action  of  that  power  in  what  we  call 
the  ordinary  course  of  nature. 

I.  Miracle  is  not  impossible.  Only  an 
atheist  can  consistently  maintain  that 
miracle  is  impossible ;  his  inconsistency 
with  nature  lies  in  his  being  an  atheist. 
The  agnostic  freely  admits,  '*  I  urge  no 
claim  of  impossibility"  ;  while  that  crude 
view  which  regards  the  universe  as  a 
gigantic  machine,  started  ages  ago,  whose 
maker  sits  idly  or  helplessly  apart  and  sees 
it  go,  makes  no  claim  on  intelligence. 

No  objection  can  be  raised  against  mira- 
cle on  account  of  the  greatness  of  the 
work  it  implies.     Creation  and  the  orderly 

1  I  refer  to  the  miracles  of  Christ  for  the  sake  of  brev- 
ity, and  because  the  whole  question  centers  in  them. 
143 


Ideas  f'Pom  ]N[ature 


processes  of  nature  are  at  least  as  wonder- 
ful in  themselves  as  any  miracle  recorded 
in  the  Bible.  Through  day  and  night 
continuously,  the  heavens  repeat  their 
silent  declaration  of  the  being  and  rule  of 
God  ;  ^  but  they  could  not  bear  immediate 
witness  to  the  truth  of  a  special  revelation 
from  God.  We  can  think  of  nothing  so 
fitting  for  this  as  the  works  recorded  of 
Christ. 

There  is  no  force  to  the  objection  that 
miracles  are  contrary  to  experience,  for  no 
one  is  able  to  say  that  they  are  contrary 
to  the  experience  of  all  mankind.  The 
miracles  of  the  Bible  are  comparatively 
few  in  number,  so  they  are  contrary  to  the 
experience  of  the  majority,  but  this  econ- 
omy of  miracle  argues  strongly  in  favor  of 
the  reasonableness  of  a  belief  in  its  use. 

2.  A  zvorld  governed  according  to  laiv  is 
necessary  for  miracle.  It  is  only  in  an  or- 
dered world  that  the  miraculous  could  be 
employed  with  significance.  The  general 
uniformity,  instead  of  rendering  the  spe- 

^  Ps.  8  :  19  ;  65  :  I04 ;    139  :  I48  ;    Isa.  40  :  12-31  ; 
Job  38-41,  etc. 

144 


pfatupal  Law  and  ]V[ipacIe 


cial  exception  impossible,  supplies  a  pre- 
requisite for  it.  If  miracles  were  ''  liable 
to  happen,"  or  could  be  served  up  fresh  on 
call,  as  some  philosophers  appear  to  de- 
mand, the  event  would  have  no  value  as  a 
divine  sign. 

3.  A  miracle  is  not  necessarily  a  viola- 
tion of  a  lazv  of  nature.  It  cannot  be 
maintained  that  a  miracle  is  a  violation  of 
a  law  of  nature,  and  therefore  impossible. 
So  Hume  defined  it ;  but  Huxley  does  not 
hesitate  to  point  out4his  error  :  ''  The  defi- 
nition of  a  miracle  as  a  violation  of  the 
laws  of  nature  is  in  reality  an  employment 
of  language  which,  in  the  face  of  the  mat- 
ter, cannot  be  justified."  ^ 

We  have  experience  of  only  a  small  por- 
tion of  universal  nature  ;  we  know  a  few  of 
its  laws,  and  of  these  our  knowledge  is  but 
rudimentary.  What  appears  to  us  excep- 
tional action  may  be  a  part  of  the  Creator's 
plan,  a  law  of  the  universe  as  a  whole,  as 
truly  as  the  regularity  which  we  daily  ex- 
perience is  his  ordinary  method  of  govern- 
ment in  that  small  fraction  of  the  universe 

1  Huxley's  "Hume,"  p.  129. 
K  145 


Ideas  from  ]N[at!UPe 


which  is  the  school  of  our  earthly  life,  and 
in  which  it  has  pleased  him  to  limit  his  or- 
dinary action  to  these  uniform  methods  so 
that  it  may  be  a  fit  school. 

Bishop  Butler  says  :  ''  And  from  hence 
it  must  follow  that  persons'  notion  of  what 
is  natural  will  be  enlarged  in  proportion  to 
their  greater  knowledge  of  the  works  of 
God,  and  the  dispensations  of  his  providence. 
Nor  is  there  any  absurdity  in  supposing 
that  there  may  be  beings  in  the  universe 
whose  capacities  and  knowledge  and  views 
may  be  so  extensive  as  that  the  whole 
Christian  dispensation  may  to  them  appear 
natural,  i.  e.,  analogous  or  conformable  to 
God's  dealings  with  other  parts  of  his  cre- 
ation ;  as  natural  as  the  visible  known 
course  of  things  appears  to  us."  ^ 

Much  difficulty  is  removed  when  we 
clearly  apprehend  this  fact  that  Christian 
miracles,  events  quite  outside  the  known 
laws  of  our  world,  may  yet  be  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  unknown  laws  of  the 
universe  of  which  our  world  forms  so  small 
a  fraction. 

^  "Analogy,"  p.  46,  Glad.  ed. 
146 


platjural  Law  and  JVIiracIe 


It  is  equally  important  to  remember  that 
miracles  cannot  be  brought  within  the  do- 
main of  natural  law,  in  the  restricted 
sense  in  which  that  term  is  always  used  in 
exact  science,  and  generally  in  common 
language  ;  for  so  it  means  the  laws  of  na- 
ture of  which  we  have  experience.  It  is 
the  very  essence  of  miracle  that  it  is  an 
unusual  act  of  the  Creator  within  the 
sphere  of  human  observation  as  the  "  na- 
tural event  "  is  his  usual  act.  They  have 
the  same  Cause ;  they  are  equally  wonder- 
ful in  themselves  ;  they  differ  in  method. 

4.    The  improbability  of  miracle  bears  in 
its  favor  as  ivell  as  against  it.    Miracle  is  not 
impossible,  but  it  is  improb- 
able ;  here  lies  the  difficulty     N^^^cles 
it  presents.     The  believer  in     l^emanded 
Christianity  is  the  one  who  should  realize 
this  to  the  full,  for  he  not   only  believes 
that  miracles  have  been  performed  at  vari- 
ous critical  periods  in  a  long  course  of  re- 
lated events  culminating  in  the  mission  of 
Jesus  Christ,  but  he  practically  sets  aside 
other  events  claiming  to  be  miraculous  as 
not  sustained  by  sufficient  evidence. 
147 


Ideas  from  plature 


What  sufficient  evidence  have  we  for 
believing  that  those  inherently  improbable 
''works,"  ''signs,"  miracles^ — to  use  the 
term  most  familiar  to  us — narrated  in  the 
Gospels  were  really  performed  by  Christ. 
It  is  easily  seen  that  if  we  admit  their 
genuineness  it  is  their  improbability,  that 
is,  their  unlikeness  to  ordinary  events, 
which  enforces  the  conclusion  of  Nicode- 
mus  that  they  were  wrought  by  the  power 
of  God,  accrediting  the  claims  of  him  who 
did  them.^  But  how  do  we  meet  this  im- 
probability in  the  full  light  of  knowledge 
that  has  swept  away  all  belief  in  magic, 
witchcraft,  and  the  like  ? 

5.  TJie  character  of  tJie  being  who  wrought 
miracles  and  the  doctrines  they  accompanied 

1  This  term  has  now  a  seUled  meaning  in  discussions 
like  the  present,  but  it  is  perhaps  unfortunate  in 
emphasizing  unduly  the  strangeness  of  the  event  it  is 
used  to  denote.  The  words  employed  by  the  writers  of 
the  Gospels — sign  and  potver  by  the  Synoptists,  sign  and 
ivo^'k  by  John — call  attention  chiefly  to  the  significance 
of  the  display  of  Divine  power,  as  the  appropriate  7vork 
of  a  Divine  Being. 

2  John  3  :  2.  See  also  the  reasoning  of  the  blind 
man  restored  to  sight  (9  :  30-33)  ;  and  the  Lord's  reply 
to  the  messengers  of  the  Baptist  (Matt.  11  :  4-6). 

148 


piatural  Law  and  JVEiracle 


supply  ail  answer.  There  is  one  view,  clearly 
defined  and  commanding,  which  presents 
evidence  so  strong,  so  self-consistent  and 
appropriate,  that  it  at  once  becomes  more 
reasonable  to  believe  that  the  miraculous 
events  did  take  place  than  that  the  records 
are  untrue.  It  is  the  view  that  accepts 
the  declaration  which  Jesus  made  of  him- 
self, that  he  was  one  with  the  Father. 

Consider  how  reasonable  the  Christian 
scheme  becomes  when  viewed  in  this  light. 
On  the  one  side  are  seen  the  power  and 
love  of  God  ;  on  the  other  the  helpless 
misery  and  guilt  of  man,  dwelt  on  by  many 
historians,  by  none  more  vividly  portrayed 
than  by  Paul  in  the  opening  passages  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  In  the  fullness 
of  time  the  Redeemer  cam.e.  He  gathered 
up  in  living  words  all  spiritual  truth  uttered 
by  sage  or  seer  in  times  past,  revealed  all 
truth  needed  for  time  to  come.  That  men 
might  know  ^  that  the  Son  of  Man  hath 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  he  showed 
openly  and  plainly  before  their  eyes  the 
unmistakable  evidences  of  divine  power  in 


1  Matt.  9  ;  2-8. 
149 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


the  miracles  he  performed.  For  sacrifice 
he  offered  himself — an  exhibition  of  love  to 
win  love  ;  for  proof  of  his  divine  mission  to 
the  ages  to  come,  a  proof  growing  stronger 
as  the  ages  pass,  he  chose  that  transforma- 
tion he  effects  in  the  souls  of  all  who  re- 
ceive him. 

His  three  years  of  public  ministry  have 
changed  the  whole  outlook  of  human  life 
from  despair  to  hope,  have  modified  the 
whole  course  of  human  history.  It  is  a 
body  of  evidence  too  strong  in  its  charac- 
ter, too  harmonious  in  its  relations  to  be 
set  aside.  Christianity  as  Christ  taught  it, 
as  Paul  understood  it,  is  too  good,  too  great 
not  to  be  true. 

6.  The  occasion  deniarided  the  miracles. 
It  is  often  urged  that  the  excellence  of 
Christian  doctrine  is  sufficient  evidence  of 
its  divine  origin.  So  it  is  after  it  is  in  the 
world  and  men  have  understood  and  ac- 
cepted it ;  but  those  who  first  listened  to 
Jesus  did  not  have  this  evidence.  To 
them  he  would  be  merely  one  more  claim- 
ant to  the  Messiahship  ;  it  would  have  been 
mockery  indeed  not  to  have  given  them 
150 


platural  Law  and  ]VIiracle 


the  signs  which  alone  could  be  to  them 
infallible  proofs  of  the  validity  of  his  claim. 
Human  envy  and  hate  would  allow  him 
only  a  few  years  in  which  to  accomplish 
his  public  work.  In  that  short  time  he 
must  attract  the  multitudes  to  himself,  win 
honest  and  thoughtful  men  who  could  be- 
come competent  witnesses,  and  make  it 
possible  for  them  to  believe  in  him  and 
admit  the  extraordinary  claims  he  made, 
despite  general  rejection  and  apparent  over- 
throw. The  miracles  of  Christ  performed 
this  service  ;  it  is  impossible  to  think  of 
anything  else  that  could  have  done  it. 

I  say  that  miracle  was  duly  wrought 
When,  save  for  it,  no  faith  was  possible. 


So  faith  grew,  making  void  more  miracles 
Because  too  much  :  they  would  compel,  not  help.  ^ 

We,  looking  back  across  the  centuries, 
recognize  the  fitness  of  these  divine  signs 
to  attract,  to  inspire  confidence,  and  to 
render  belief  possible  to  the  first  hearers 
of  the  word.  We  do  not  wish  that  they 
might  be  expunged,  we  do  not  want  them 

^  Browning,  "A  Death  in  the  Desert." 


Ideas  from  jJature 


explained  away ;  their  presence  in  the  rec- 
ord is  a  help,  their  absence  would  create  a 
difficulty  hard  to  overcome. 

All  seeming  impossibility  is  removed 
from  Christian  miracles  by  restoring  God 
to  nature  ;  all  improbability  vanishes  when 
we  accept  Jesus  Christ  as  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh. 

But  the  value  of  evidence  is  dependent 
on  the  spiritual  position  of  him  who  exam- 
ines it.  To  those  who  assign  to  Jesus  a 
lower  place,  this  strong  evidence  for  his 
miracles — the  inherent  reasonableness  of 
belief  in  them,  because  recognizing  the 
occasion  as  demanding  them — is  wanting. 
For  them  the  improbability  must  retain 
great  force  ;  and  as  their  respect  for  the 
grand  personality  of  the  Great  Teacher 
rises,  the  want  of  harmony  between  their 
conception  of  him  and  the  only  record  of 
him  which  we  possess  must  often  occasion 
grave  unrest.  Modern  rationalism,  mas- 
querading in  the  vestments  of  Christianity, 
cannot  be  expected  to  regard  belief  in  the 
miraculous  with  anything  more  than  indul- 
gent pity. 

152 


jfaljupal  Law  and  JVIipacIe 


7.    The  contrast  between  Christianity  with 
and  without  its  miraculous  elements  is  itself 
decisive.     We    may  not    re- 
peat the  experience  of  a  Nico-     -^^^^^^  ^^ 
demus    or    a   Thomas;    but      ^^M^^"^ 
there  is  one  test  which  has  immense  sig- 
nificance for  us  in  these  days. 

When  Christianity  is  accepted  as  a  mi- 
raculous revelation  from  God  it  is  strong  ; 
as  soon  as  it  comes  to  be  viewed  as  merely 
an  incident  in  evolution,  a  product  of  de- 
veloping humanity,  its  power  begins  to 
wane.  Yet  the  moral  beauty  of  its  teach- 
ings remains  the  same  in  both  cases.  Why 
is  it  that  in  the  first  case  the  gospel  wins 
the  heroic  devotion  of  some  and  arouses 
the  fierce  opposition  of  others,  while  in  the 
second  case  its  opponents  deem  it  scarcely 
worth  attacking  and  its  adherents  begin  to 
doubt  whether  it  is  worth  the  cost  of 
preaching  it  to  every  creature }  It  is  be- 
cause Christianity,  divested  of  its  miracu- 
lous elements,  is  like  a  body  separated  from 
the  soul  that  had  energized  it. 

Unwavering  faith  in  the  word  as  a  direct 
revelation  from  God  was  what  inspired  its 
153 


Ideas  from  ]\fature 


early  ministers  and  secured  the  surprising 
triumphs  of  the  first  centuries,  while  it 
was  yet  too  obscure  to  win  the  selfish  pat- 
ronage of  ambitious  rulers.  A  like  faith 
has  attended  every  great  religious  awaken- 
ing. It  inspired  the  heroes  of  the  Ref- 
ormation and  enabled  Wesley  to  startle 
Christendom  out  of  the  slumber  of  formal- 
ism. Down  to  the  present  time — even  if 
it  is  true,  as  some  of  its  critics  declare, 
that  miraculous  Christianity  does  not  enjoy 
the  full  favor  of  the  world — it  is  doing  the 
best  work  that  is  being  done  for  the  world.  ^ 
It  is  easy  to  see  why  opponents  of  Chris- 
tianity have  striven  so  persistently  to  un- 
dermine this  citadel  of  its  strength,  but 
difficult  indeed  to  understand  why  any  of 
its  true  friends  should  think  the  time  has 
come  for  its  surrender. 

There  is  nothing  in  natural  science  to 

^  Gladstone  says,  in  his  Glasgow  address  :  "Chris- 
tianity, even  in  its  sadly  imperfect  development  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  at  the  head  of  the  world."  And  again: 
"  For  the  last  fifteen  hundred  years  Christianity  has 
always  marched  at  the  head  of  all  human  improvement 
and  civilization,  and  it  has  harnessed  to  its  car  all  that 
is  great  and  glorious  in  humanity." 


]N[atupal  Law  and  JVEiracle 


make  that  surrender  imperative.  No  truth 
of  science,  no  well-established  principle,  no 
consistent  theory,  is  fatal  to  a  belief  in 
Christian  miracles.  One  may  define  evo- 
lution as  the  only  and  universal  method  of 
divine  activity,  and  infer  that  this  defini- 
tion excludes  miracle.  Very  good  !  But 
the  definition  rests  on  an  assumption  for 
which  science  affords  no  basis.  The  re- 
sults obtained  by  those  who  are  now  at 
work  on  the  problems  of  biology  show 
plainly  that  if  evolution  can  rightly  be 
called  a  universal  process,  as  we  speak  of 
universal  gravitation,  it  can  by  no  means 
be  claimed  to  be  the  only  process  operating 
in  the  world. 

Evolution  gives  no  explanation  of  the 
cause  of  variation,  nor  of  the  preparation 
for  evolution,  which  has  brought  it  about 
that  things  and  environment  act  and  react 
upon  each  other  in  such  very  different 
ways  as  we  see  them  doing.  Side  by  side 
with  evolution  march  degradation  and 
destruction.  In  fact,  if  we  are  to  be 
shut  up  to  Darwinism,  destruction  is  the 
rule,  development  the  exception ;  the  vast 
155 


Ideas  from  jlature 


multitudes  of  living  beings  are  cast  as 
rubbish  to  the  void.  Exact  science  is  very 
distinctly  calling  for  pause  in  the  extrava- 
gant worship  paid  to  evolution  as  a  fetich 
by  enthusiastic  devotees  who  use  the  name 
of  science  as  their  warrant. 

The  truth  is  this  :  we  are  only  at  the 
beginning  of  a  theory  of  evolution.  One 
attempt  has  been  made  to  apply  what  we 
have  to  answer  one  question,  and  that  a 
lesser  one,  about  the  origin  of  species, 
how  a  variation  may  be  preserved  after  it 
has  been  produced.  In  the  estimation  of 
masters  in  science  like  Huxley,  Romanes, 
and  others,  all  ardent  evolutionists,  the 
answer  given  is  not  yet  perfectly  satisfac- 
tory. 

The  evolutionary  process,  as  we  fashion 
it  in  our  imaginations,  is  a  magnificent 
one,  and,  to  use  the  best  knowledge  and 
thought  we  possess,  it  seems  worthy  of 
God ;  but  we  must  not  therefore  think  of 
God  as  bound  helplessly  to  this  one  pro- 
cess, like  Ixion  to  his  wheel,  as  some  ar- 
dent advocates  of  evolution  appear  to  rep- 
resent him.  This  is  to  put  evolution  first 
156 


platural  La^r  and  ]VIiracle 


and  God  second.  Men  who  are  not  quite 
prepared  to  banish  God  from  the  world  are 
willing  to  let  him  serve  under  evolution. 
He  may  act,  if  indeed  he  has  any  will  to 
act,  but  he  must  act  strictly  in  accordance 
with  that  philosophic  notion  called  evolu- 
tion or  they  will  refuse  to  believe  in  his 
activity.  All  this  is  tending  back  again  to 
non-Christian  philosophies  that  place  blind 
necessity  or  intellectual  abstractions  void 
of  intellect  at  the  summit  of  being.  It  is 
fraud  to  call  such  doctrines  either  modern 
or  scientific. 

On  the  contrary,  the  thoughtful  study 
of  nature  tends  to  confirm  our  belief  in  a 
Maker  who  cares,  desires,  plans,  does,  and 
therefore  is  the  Perfect  One.  He  may 
even,  if  occasion  arise,  do  a  new  thing, 
"  leave  the  ninety  and  nine  in  the  wilder- 
ness, and  go  after  that  which  is  lost,  until 
he  find  it." 

If  there  had  been  no  violation  of  law, 
evolution  might,  perhaps,  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  secure  an  upward  tendency,  a 
harmonious  progress  ;  but  since  voluntary 
transgression  has  made  corruption  and 
157 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


misery  common  facts  of  human  life,  more 
is  called  for.  And  there  is  more  :  man's  sin 
became  the  occasion  of  God's  miracle  of 
redeeming  grace. 

Granting  that  there  has  been  evolution 
in  the  unfolding  of  the  scheme  of  the 
universe  in  time  and  space,  it  does  not 
follow  that  there  has  not  also  been  mira- 
cle. God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways, 
and  no  one  is  qualified  to  declare  that  the 
creative  activity  of  the  Self-existent  in 
universal  nature  has  been  limited  to  those 
methods  of  which  we  have  daily  experi- 
ence in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  in 
that  minute  fraction  of  the  universe  which 
is  '*  nature  "  to  us. 

8.   Science  accepts  one  miracle,  creation. 

When  we  inquire  about  the  origin  of  mat- 

„,  ^      ter  and  energy,  of    life  and 

pipst  of  K\\      .    ,  ^^  ,,    ,  ^ 

*^  mmd,  we    are  compelled   to 

refer  to    creative    acts    other    than   those 

with  which  we  are  made  familiar  by  what 

is    seen    of     the    operation    of     "natural 

causes."  ^     Science  recognizes  the  reality 

^  This  remains  true,  whether  we  regard  our  universe 
as  the  earliest  cosmos  or  not. 


platural  Lai^r  and  ]V[ipacle 


of  the  time-world  as  the  groundwork  of 
its  conclusions ;  it  thereby  accepts  the 
miracle  of  creation.  Evolution  does  not 
attempt  to  account  for  the  origin  of  na- 
ture ;  that  lies  quite  beyond  its  scope,  and 
must  be  viewed  as  the  direct  act  of  God. 
The  new  creation  of  the  human  soul,  the 
central  event  of  human  history,  may  fitly 
be  classed  with  it.  Both  nature  and  Chris- 
tianity exhibit  in  their  unfoldings  this  ''  fa- 
vorite method"  of  the  Creator,  the  method 
of  growth,  evolution ;  but  the  grain  of 
mustard  seed  must  first  exist  with  its  po- 
tentialities and  harmonious  environment 
before  its  growth  can  illustrate  the  nature 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Without  the 
miracle  of  creation  nature  would  not  exist ; 
but  for  the  miracle  of  revelation  there 
would  be  no  Christian  religion. 

That  inevitable  tendency  of  human 
thought  toward  unity  in  its  search  for 
cause,  is  not  satisfied  by  evolution.  For 
a  time  the  grandeur  of  the  conception 
overawes,  but  closer  inspection  shows  that, 
grand  as  it  is,  it  is  not  original,  but  de- 
rived, and  must  take  its  place  among 
159 


Ideas  from  plature 


things  secondary.  Unity  of  cause  is 
found  only  in  the  will  of  God,  There  is 
then  but  one  question  regarding  Christian 
miracles,  and  each  of  us  must  decide  it  in 
his  own  heart.  Have  we  good  reasons 
for  believing  that  it  has  pleased  God  to 
make  known  the  way  of  life  through  One 
who  came  down  from  heaven  ? 

Under  the  stress  of  material  things, 
when  nothing  seems  real  but  the  busy 
concerns  of  this  earthly  life,  when  belief 
in  God  has  grown  feeble,  we  may  hesitate 
to  give  an  affirmative  answer.  When  the 
vital  power  of  Christianity,  accepted  as  it 
is  taught  in  the  New  Testament,  taken  in 
its  simple  grammatical  meaning,  is  experi- 
enced in  the  soul  or  even  honestly  esti- 
mated in  history,  doubt  vanishes  and  reason 
is  satisfied  that  God  has  so  willed.  And 
nothing  forbids,  not  nature,  nor  the  lapse 
of  centuries,  nor  the  limitations  of  human 
testimony. 

For  us  the  doctrines  justify  the  mira- 
cles. The  gospel,  with  its  miraculous  ele- 
ments, is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
to  every  one  that  believeth  ;  without  them 


1 60 


platural  Law  and  ]V[iracle 


it  may  become  the  rule  of  formalism,  the 
forerunner  of  indifferentism.  The  former 
startles  the  world  with  the  declaration,  "  If 
ye  believe  not  that  I  am  he,  ye  shall  die  in 
your  sins  "  ;  ^  the  other  soothes  with  that 
older  text,  more  flattering  but  always  mis- 
leading, *'  Ye  shall  not  surely  die." 

Herbert  Spencer  has  lately  finished  his 
great  work  on  ''  Synthetic  Philosophy/' 
begun  many  years  ago.  In  the  division 
treating  of  religion  he  says  :  "  But  one 
truth  must  grow  ever  clearer — the  truth 
that  there  is  an  inscrutable  existence  every- 
where manifested,  to  which  he  (the  thought- 
ful observer)  can  neither  find  nor  conceive 
either  beginning  or  end.  Amid  the  mys- 
teries which  become  the  more  mysterious 
the  more  they  are  thought  about,  there  will 
remain  the  one  absolute  certainty — that 
he  is  ever  in  presence  of  an  infinite  and 
eternal  energy  from  which  all  things  pro- 
ceed." 

Thus  philosophy,  following  the  lead  of 

2  John  8  :  24.  Evidently  John  would  not  agree  with 
the  modern  teachers,  who  assure  us  that  Jesus  laid 
very  little  stress  on  belief. 

L  161 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


science,  finds  everywhere  behind  the  phe- 
nomena   of     nature    indica- 

^^e  "^ns^^nf  ^  tions  of  a  supernatural  Cause 
which  it  is  yet  unable  ade- 
quately to  make  known.  So  if  man  is  to 
have  definite  knowledge  of  his  Creator  it 
must  be  through  a  miraculous  revelation. 

Christianity  recognizes  in  this  ''  ijifijiite 
and  eternal  ejtergy  "  of  the  philosopher  the 
one  living  and  true  God  whom  the  Bible 
reveals,  and  addresses  to  the  modern  ag- 
nostic the  words  of  Paul  to  the  devotees 
of  the  unknown  God  at  Athens,  ''Whom 
therefore  ye  ignorantly  worship,  him  de- 
clare I  unto  you." 

And  what  of  the  Christian's  faith  in  the 
efficacy  of  prayer,  his  trust  in  Providence } 
The  farmer  plows  his  field,  turning  down 
the  sward  to  decay  in  the  darkness.  He 
prepares  the  soil,  sows  and  covers  the 
seed.  What  does  he  expect  that  he  thus 
buries  the  grain,  which  might  have  become 
food  for  man,  and  leaves  it  to  die  in  the 
ground  t  Does  he  hope  by  his  puny  ef- 
forts to  interrupt  the  continuity  of  cause 

and  effect,  to  set  aside  the  laws  of  nature  .-* 
162 


JNlatJUPal  La^  and  JVEiracle 


No,  he  does  not  expect  to  set  aside  the 
laws  of  nature ;  he  has  probably  never 
even  heard  of  determinism  ;  but  experi- 
ence has  given  him  a  robust  faith  in  the 
human  will  as  one  of  the  causes  that  de- 
termine. 

His  act  is  a  sublime  expression  of  faith 
in  those  unvarying  laws  as  the  instruments 
through  which  his  labor  may  secure  a  real 
good  which  without  that  labor  would  never 
have  come  to  him.  The  result  justifies 
his  reliance  when  the  harvest  brings  to 
him,  in  manifold  returns,  seed  for  the 
sower  and  bread  for  the  eater.  Just  as 
wise  and  just  as  scientific  is  our  belief 
that  the  laws  of  man's  spiritual  being  af- 
ford avenues  through  which  our  strivings 
after  God  and  efforts  to  do  his  will  can 
bring  to  us  returns  quite  as  real  as  the 
fruits  of  the  cultivated  field,  and  far  more 
precious  and  enduring  than  they. 


163 


NATCIRE  A  MANIFESTATIOM 
OF  GOD 


Call  my  works  thy  friends 
At  nature  dost  thou  shrink  amazed? 
God  is  it  who  transcends. 

— Browning 


V 


While  we  recognize  that  in  this  universe 
of  things  governed  by  mind  the  behef  in 
natural  law  is  not  hostile  to  a  belief  in 
Christian  miracles,  we  must  not  forget  that 
the  familiar  processes  of  nature  are  also 
witnesses  to  God's  being  and  government, 
in  one  way  more  urgent,  because  they  are 
repeated  continuously  day  after  day  before 
our  waking  sense.  They  cannot  be  ex- 
plained until  they  are  referred  to  him  as 
their  cause,  and  being  referred  to  him  as 
their  cause  they  are  voices  that  speak  to 
us  of  him.  I  mean  that  the  flowing  of  the 
river,  and  the  streaming  currents  that  are 
making  green  once  more  the  blades  of 
grass  on  field  and  lawn,  the  unfolding  buds 
on  the  trees,  and  the  opening  flowers  of 
woodland  and  meadow,  have  a  message  to 
deliver  to  us  from  God,  if  only  we  have  ears 
to  hear. 

There  may  be  sometimes  an  undue  ten- 
167 


Ideas  from  plature 


dency  on  the  part  of  the  religious  teacher 
to  employ  unusual  occurrences  whose  con- 
ditions are  unknown  to  us — the  tempest, 
the  flood,  the  earthquake — as  proofs  of 
the  reality  of  God's  government  in  na- 
ture. I  know  that  the  perplexity  of  an 
inquirer  is  often  increased  in  this  way ;  for 
he  cannot  but  reason  that  as  all  the  events 
we  can  adequately  investigate  are  found  to 
depend  on  natural  causes,  so  the  mystery  of 
these  rarer  occurrences  would  be  removed 
if  we  could  only  trace  their  antecedents. 
All  this  perplexity  is  removed  for  him 
when  he  is  brought  to  set  himself  face  to 
face  with  the  fact  that  the  same  "mystery" 
is  present  in  the  simplest  and  most  ordi- 
nary event  in  nature,  as  truly  as  in  the 
most  uncommon  and  stupendous.  We 
have  no  adequate  explanation  for  the  fall- 
ing of  a  stone  until  we  clearly  understand 
that  it  is  not  produced  by  natural  causes, 
but  by  the  power  of  God  acting  through 
natural  causes ;  and  the  same  explanation 
is  equally  adequate  to  account  for  the 
crumpling  and  rending  of  the  earth  beneath 

our  feet,  or  the  stately  march  of  the  con- 
i68 


plature  a  JVIanifestation  of  Qod 

stellations  above  our  heads.     All  natural 
events  are  equally  mysterious 
in  this  sense.     A  master  in  ''  ^        ^ 
science  tells  us  that  the  evo- 
lution  of  the  universe  is  not  more  nor  less 
difficult  to  understand  than  the  evolution 
of  a  bird  from  the  egg.      If  you  are  inclined 
to  regard  that  as  touched  with  the  exagger- 
ation of  the  specialist,  listen  to  this  : 

Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 

I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies ; — 

Hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 

Little  flower;  but  if  I  could  understand 

What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 

I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is.  ^ 

Then  such  representations  as  are  in  the 
one  hundred  and  fourth  Psalm,  in  the  clos- 
ing chapters  of  Job,  in  the  words  of  the 
Master  about  the  sparrows,  are  not  merely 
allowable  as  poetry  but  are  true  to  science. 

The  sum  is  this  :  nature  cannot  account 
for  itself.  It  refers  us  for  an  explanation 
to  something  above  nature ;  that  is  what 
we  mean  when  we  speak  of  the  demand  of 
reason  for  a  belief  in  the  supernatural. 

1  Tennyson. 
169 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


We  may  refuse  to  lift  up  our  eyes  and 
ask,  "  Who  hath  created  these  things  ? " 
but  this  is  blank  unreason,  an  exaggeration 
of  agnosticism.  If  we  do  ask  the  cause  of 
even  the  simplest  process  in  nature,  there 
is  no  place  to  pause  along  the  whole  line 
of  inquiry  until  we  reach  an  infinite  First 
Cause. 

The  orderly  processes  of  nature,  the  man- 
ifold relations  of  its  many  parts,  all  acting 
in  harmony  as  the  tides  obey  the  moon, 
proclaim  that  this  universal  frame  was 
planned,  is  the  working  out  of  a  grand  de- 
sign. Design  implies  self-conscious  thought, 
personality;  the  infinite  First  Cause  is  a 
personal  God. 

It  follows  then  that  this  world  in  which 
we  live,  this  realm  of  the  natural  that 
spreads  out  before  our  eyes,  and  answers 
to  our  touch ;  this  world  of  secondary 
causes,  conditions,  relations,  effects,  only 
acquires  its  full  dignity  in  the  estimation  of 
the  Christian.  He,  of  all  men,  will  be  most 
anxious  to  read  its  lessons  aright,  will  be 
most  ready  to  accept  the  truth  it  declares. 
He  may  not  affect  to  look  down  upon 
170 


]\[at3urs  a  ]V[anifestjation  of  Qod 

material  things,  when  he  recognizes  matter 
and  mechanism  as  the  handiwork  of  the 
God  whom  he  worships. 

The  discoveries  of  science  have  not 
tended  to  remove  the  mystery  of  causation 
in  nature,  or  to  cast  doubt  on  the  declara- 
tion of  religion,  which  refers  it  to  the  will 
of  God.  But  science  has  done  much  to 
increase  our  knowledge  of  the  processes 
that  go  on  in  nature,  and  for  these  there  is 
a  marked  tendency  to  assign  what  may  be 
called  mechanical  explanations,  that  is, 
explanations  involving  mechanical,  physi- 
cal, or  chemical  operations.  It  is  not  easy 
to  understand  why  many  good  men  seem 
to  regard  this  tendency  with  apprehension. 

The  structure  of  the  human  arm,  the  uses 
of  food,  the  exhaustion  of  brain  that  fol- 
lows long-continued  mental  activity,  show 
us  that  the  Creator  is  not  averse  to  using 
mechanical  and  physical  and  chemical 
operations.  Mechanical  processes  may 
well  be  co-extensive  with  the  material  uni- 
verse and  play  their  fitting  part  in  the 
changes  that  go  on  in  the  living  cell. 
These  are  matters  for  investigation  to  de- 
171 


Ideas  from  ]\[atiire 


cide,  and  we  may  confidently  hope  that 
they  may  be  decided  in  the  affirmative,  for 
such  an  answer  would  substitute  knowledge 
for  ignorance. 

But  what  is  mechanism  ?  Contrivance 
for  the  successful  application  of  force  to 
the  accomplishment  of  a  desired  end. 
There  still  remain  the  questions :  Who 
desired  the  ends  we  see  accomplished  in 
nature  ?  Who  originated  the  contrivances  ? 
Who  supplies  and  directs  the  energy  nec- 
essary for  working  them  ?  For  these 
questions  there  is  evidently  but  one  an- 
swer; but  science — rightly — does  not  at- 
tempt to  answer  them  ;  its  part  is  to  set 
them  before  us  in  their  full  force  and 
integrity. 

The  votary  of  religion  must  learn  how 
widely  mechanical  contrivances  prevail  in 
nature,  and  must  welcome  them  as  the  signs 
by  which  intelligence  recognizes  intelli- 
gence and  determines  the  method  of  its 
working.  He  will  then  be  prepared  to 
point  out  to  the  devotee  of  physical  science 
the  sheer  unreason  of  maintaining  that 
nature  reveals  nothing  but  mechanism. 
172 


jiature  a  JVLanifestjation  of  Qod 

For  the  mistake  of  naturalism  ^  is  not  so 
much  that  it  declares  the  cosmos  to  be 
mechanical,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
science,  as  that  it  declines  to  go  on  and 
acknowledge  frankly  that  mechanism  im- 
plies plan  on  the  part  of  some  self-con- 
scious being. 

There  is  no  antagonism  between  the 
view  that  regards  nature  as  ordered  through 
mechanism,  and  that  which  affirms  it  to  be 
governed  by  Divine  Will.  Spencer  may 
be  substantially  correct  in  his  general  con- 
ception of  the  world-process,  evolution,  the 
method  of  growth  ;  and  also  his  greater 
contemporary  Browning  may  be  wholly 
right  in  his  solution  of  the  world-problem 
which  Spencer  relegates  to  the  unknow- 
able : 

The  world, 
The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 
.  .   .   and  God  made  it  all  ! 

We  may  with  perfect  consistency  hold 

1  Naturalism,  the  term  used  by  Balfour,  and  others, 
to  include  all  creeds  founded  on  the  doctrine  that  we 
can  know  only  phenomena  and  their  laws. — "  Founda- 
tions of  Belief '  pp.  6,  7,  g2,  etc. 
173 


Ideas  from  ]N[ature 


that  the  history  of  our  world  and  its  inhab- 
itants is  in  its  general  course 

Causation  and  ,  ^.      ,         t,^    u     ^ 

an  evolution,  brought  about 

peemmg  through  natural  causes,  and 
at  the  same  time  recognize  it  as  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  a  Divine  plan. 

It  is  wholly  reasonable  to  believe  that  if 
an  intelligence  of  the  highest  human  order 
could  have  watched  the  process  of  creation 
from  the  beginning,  seeing  only  as  we  now 
see,  from  the  outside,  there  would  have 
appeared  to  him  no  breach  of  continuity. 

Light  is  called  out  of  darkness  ;  but  our 
observer  hears  no  creative  fiat  any  more 
than  we  do  when  we  watch  the  morning 
dawn  above  the  Eastern  hills.  Things  be- 
fore unseen  take  shape  beneath  his  gaze  ; 
so  we  see  the  great  cumulus  clouds  become 
visible  as  the  heated  air  of  summer  streams 
upward  into  colder  space.  New  wonders 
arise  ;  but  so  they  do  to  one  who  from 
childhood  has  watched  the  almost  change- 
less growth  of  the  so-called  century  plant, 
and  at  last  in  old  age  sees  it  suddenly  send 
up  its  tall  scape  and  unfold  its  blossoms 
for  the  first  time. 

174 


]N[atupe  a  f/Eanifestatjion  of  Qod 

Even  if  our  imagined  observer  were  for- 
tunate enough  to  be  present  at  the  first 
mysterious  union  of  the  great  four  ele- 
ments, to  record  the  origin  of  protoplasm, 
to  hail  the  advent  of  the  first  living  germ, 
and  watch  its  progressive  development,  he 
could  trace  changes,  more  manifold  truly, 
but  not  in  kind  different  from  those  we  see 
when  we  study  the  evolution  of  a  bird  from 
the  egg. 

He  would  have  a  view  of  nature,  only ; 
he  would  see  processes  continuous,  suc- 
cessive, natural.  He  could  not  point  to 
any  part  and  say,  ''This  is  not  natural." 

To  rest  here  is  to  be  content  with  natu- 
ralism, materialism  ;  but  reason  forbids  man 
to  rest  here,  refuses  to  rest  anywhere  short 
of  the  Author  of  all  this  harmony. 

To  a  higher  intelligence,  watching  crea- 
tion from  the  other  side,  all  wonder  at  the 
multiform  unfoldings  of  the  mighty  plan 
would  be  adoration  of  the  Creator's  power 
and  wisdom.  Whether  that  which  now  is 
had  existence  at  once  by  the  creative  word, 
or  was  evolved  through  long  ages,  the  only 
language  that  could  convey  the  truth  fitly 
175 


Ideas  from  ]N[atupe 


to  primitive  man,  the  only  language  that 
can  convey  it  fully  to  us  is,  ''God  created," 
"  God  fashioned." 

He  originated ;  he  maintains.  His 
thought  is  energy ;  his  will  is  cause  and 
gives  efficiency  to  that  mysterious  nexus 
that  makes  one  event  the  antecedent  or 
consequent  of  another.  That  continuity 
of  cause  and  effect  which  science  declares 
to  be  the  rule  of  nature  is  simply  the  con- 
tinuity of  Divine  activity.  Science  hopes 
to  discover  a  unity  of  origin  for  the  differ- 
ent forms  of  energy  :  religion  finds  it  in 
the  will  of  God  acting  with  purpose. 

Sometimes  the  believer  in  the  Bible  ob- 
jects to  this  close  association  of  things 
natural  with  things  divine,  and  warns  back 
any  one  who  would  bring  from  the  study 
of  nature  a  proof  of  God's  existence,  a 
witness  to  his  attributes.  But  here  the 
Bible  itself  is  against  him.  At  its  very 
opening  it  claims  nature  as  the  workman- 
ship of  God.  In  the  writings  of  prophet 
and  psalmist,  in  the  teachings  of  our  Lord 
and  his  apostles,  lessons  to  strengthen  faith 
are  drawn  from  these  visible  surroundings. 


176 


JNlature  a  f/Ianifestation  of  Qod 

Indeed  the  only  argument  used  in  the 
Bible  to  show  the  certainty  of  God's  exist- 
ence is  the  argument  from  intelligent  de- 
sign in  nature. 

If  the  Christian  of  these  latter  days  had 
made  himself  familiar  with  his  Bible,  if  he 
had  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  sacred 
writings,  he  would  have  discovered  that 
everywhere  in  them  nature  is  recognized 
as  the  creature  of  God,  all  things  are  his 
servants, — "  fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapor  ; 
stormy  wind,  fulfilling  his  word,"  ^ — and 
the  good  man  would  not  have  been  so  badly 
terrified,  though  he  might  have  been  sur- 
prised, to  learn  that  as  knowledge  advances 
natural  events  are  found  to  be  connected 
by  natural  causes,  and  nature  thus  shown, 
more  and  more  certainly,  to  be  the  harmo- 
nious thought  of  one  mind  ;  and  he  could 
scarcely  fail  to  see  with  delight  to  how 
great  an  extent  that  mind  was  made  acces- 
sible to  the  mind  of  man  through  self- 
manifestation  in  the  continuous  and  orderly 
activities  of  nature. 

Neither  would  he  have  been  scared  by 

1  Ps.  148. 
M  177 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


the  growing  probability  of  a  new  theory  of 
the  origin  of  species  ^  into  hiding  away  his 
belief  in  design,  or  in  wrapping  it  in  apolo- 
getic terms  borrowed  from  philosophy,  to 
escape  the  scoff  of  the  unthinking  or  the 
indulgent  smile  of  the  scientific. 

Nothing  has  transpired  to  make  the 
present  relations  of  man  and  nature  expli- 
cable on  any  other  view  than  as  a  designed 
END.  We  may  therefore  rest  assured  that 
he  who  designed  the  end  designed  the 
means,  and  though  we  cannot  always  see 
where  things  remote  find  their  place  in  the 
great  scheme,  or  that  possibly  every  means 
is  an  end  in  itself,  some  failure  in  this 
direction  may  reasonably  be  set  down  to 
the  fact  that  the  human  mind  is  not  infi- 
nite. 

^  The  acute  champion  of  teleology,  Paley,  saw  no 
difficulty  in  admitting  that  the  "  production  of  things  " 
may  be  the  result  of  trains  of  mechanical  dispositions 
fixed  beforehand  by  intelligent  appointment  and  kept  in 
action  by  a  power  at  the  center — that  is  to  say,  he  pro- 
leptically  accepted  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  ; 
and  his  successors  might  do  well  to  follow  their  leader, 
or  at  any  rate  to  attend  to  his  weighty  reasonings  before 
rushing  into  an  antagonism  which  has  no  reasonable 
foundation.  — Huxley,  *  '■Life  of  Danoin, ' '  Vol.  I. ,  p.  555. 
178 


jlature  a  ]VIanifestation  of  Qod 

Let  us  not  fear  to  bring  out  the  good  old 
argument — this  argument  from  design  in 
nature:  of  all  external  evidences  for  the 
being  of  a  wise  and  good  God,  it  presents 
the  strongest,  the  clearest,  the  most  avail- 
able, and  the  most  satisfactory  to  sound 
reason.  It  alone  furnishes  an  explanation 
of  the  cosmos  worthy  its  existence. 

The  pantheist  looks  upon  the  sum  of 
things  natural  and  calls  it  God,  only  a 
more  poetic  form  of  the  grosser  "  no  God." 
Christianity  makes  known  the  living  God, 
in  whom  all  things  consist,  manifested  in 
nature  and  supreme  over  nature. 

Tennyson  has  well  expressed  for  us  this 
Christian  view  of  nature  as  a  visible  mani- 
festation of  the  invisible  Spirit  in  his 
"  Higher  Pantheism,"  which  means  some- 
thing higher  than  pantheism.  In  matters 
wherein  touch  so  palpably  exceeds  grasp 
the  poet  is  often  our  best  helper : 

THE    HIGHER    PANTHEISM. 

The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills, 

and  the  plains — 
Are   not   these,  O   Soul,   the  Vision  of  him  who 

reigns  ? 

179 


Ideas  from  JNlature 


Is  not  the  vision  he  ?  tho'  he  be  not  that  which  he 

seems  ? 
Dreams  are  true  while  they  last,  and  do  we  not 

live  in  dreams  ? 

Earth,  these  solid  stars,  this  weight  of  body  and 

limb. 
Are  they  not  sign  and  symbol  of  thy  division  from 

him  ? 

Dark  is  the  world  to  thee  :  thyself  art  the  reason 

why  ; 
For  is  he  not  all  but  thou,  that  has  power  to  feel 

"I  am  I ! " 

Glory  about  thee,  without  thee  :  and  thou  fulfillest 

thy  doom, 
Making  him  broken  gleams,  and  a  stifled  splendor 

and  gloom. 

Speak  to  him  thou,  for  he  hears,  and  Spirit  with 

spirit  can  meet — 
Closer  is  he  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands 

and  feet. 

God  is  law,  say  the  wise,  O  Soul,  and  let  us  re- 
joice, 

For  if  he  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet  his 
voice. 

Law  is  God,   say  some;  no  God   at  all   says  the 

fool; 
For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff 

bent  in  a  pool; 
i8o 


platupe  a  ]V[anifestation  of  Qod 

And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye  of 

man  cannot  see  ; 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  vision — were  it 

not  he? 

Our  Lord  bade  us  consider  the  lilies 
hov/  they  grow ;  for  one  who  obeys  his  in- 
junction there  are  thousands  who  merely 
consider  the  beauty  of  the  saying.  Per- 
haps this  is  one  reason  why  the  divine 
warning  against  worry  is  so  little  heeded. 

There  is  an  objection  in  many  minds  to 
this  humble  mode  of  learning  from  common 
things,  a  mental  attitude  perhaps  rather 
than  an  uttered  thought,  which  may  be 
expressed  in  this  way :  "  These  sensible 
things  are  mere  phenomena,  appearances, 
the  changing  aspects  of  the  material  and 
the  finite.  What  we  want  is  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  spiritual  and  the  infinite,  the 
underlying  reality  that  abides." 

Good ;  it  is  to  convey  knowledge  of  the 
spiritual  and  the  infinite  that      . 
we  are  surrounded  by  these    Knowledge 
material  phenomena.     They      ^^^jough 
are  symbols  by  which  we  learn     ^yni^ols 

something  about  the  one  underlying   re- 
i8i 


Ideas  from  ]N[ature 


ality  ;  object-lessons  on  the  invisible,  utter- 
ances of  the  inaudible,  manifestations  of 
him  who  in  all  ages  and  among  all  nations 
left  not  himself  without  witness.^  The 
teachings  of  nature  do  not  afford  a  full 
revelation  of  God,  else  we  should  not  need 
the  Bible ;  but  they  are  the  everywhere 
present  reminders  of  the  truth  of  his  being 
which  the  Bible  endorses,  which  it  uses  as 
the  elementary  truths  of  religion. 

This  is  their  highest  use  for  us ;  moun- 
tain and  river,  the  stars  that  shine,  the 
flowers  that  bloom,  are  here  to  speak  to  us 
of  that  one  reality.  You  catch  the  charm 
of  a  landscape,  wonder  at  the  glory  of  a 
sunset,  and  your  heart  leaps  with  a  thrill 
of  joy.  The  doctrine  of  evolution  by 
natural  selection  is  powerless  to  explain 
that  thrill  of  emotion.  It  is  the  soul  within 
you  recognizing  in  the  unspoken  language 
of  nature  the  voice  of  God,  saying : 

' '  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here. ' ' 

The  awe  inspired  by  the  grand  in  na- 
ture, the  insignificance  we  feel  in  its  pres- 

^  Acts  14  :  17. 

182 


plature  a  JVEanifestation  of  Qod 


ence,  are  not  because  a  mountain  or  an 
ocean  is  a  greater  thing  than  a  man,  for  it 
is  not.  These  feehngs  rise  within  us  be- 
cause we  at  once  and  instinctively  under- 
stand that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a 
Power  infinitely  superior  to  ourselves. 
Sea  and  crag  are  there  to  teach  this  les- 
son, a  lesson  by  which  we  begin  to  climb 
from  a  sense  of  our  own  limited  capacity 
to  some  apprehension  of  the  Infinite  One. 

Only  the  rare  poetic  soul  can  unfold  the 
meaning  of  this  lesson  for  us,  as  Coleridge 
has  done  in  his  sublime  *'  Hymn  before 
Sunrise."  So  too,  the  exquisite  tracery  of 
the  snowflake,  the  modest  beauty  of  the 
wayside  flower,  bring  to  him  who  will  con- 
sider them  the  welcome  message  of  divine 
care. 

We  hold  intercourse  with  our  fellow- 
men,  mind  answering  to  mind,  through 
material  symbols,  the  look,  the  gesture, 
the  spoken  or  written  word.  So  nature  is 
mind  revealed  through  those  two  mysteri- 
ous physical  agencies  which  we  name  mat- 
ter and  energy.  The  natural  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  spiritual,  as  language  is 
183 


Ideas  from  jlature 


the  expression  of  thought.  It  is  spirit 
that  is  real ;  but  we  know  spirit  through 
its  manifestation  :  it  is  spirit  that  quick- 
eneth,  and  to  this  end  the  Word  was  made 
flesh. 

But  instructive  as  the  world  appears  to 
the  thoughtful  observer,  it  reveals  a  deeper 
significance  under  the  close  scrutiny  of 
science.  Man's  knowledge  of  nature  is, 
in  its  full  extent,  the  communion  of  man's 
mind  with  the  mind  of  the  Author  of  na- 
ture, as  our  understanding  of  Hamlet  is  the 
measure  of  our  communion  with  the  mind 
of  Shakespeare.  The  human  soul,  through 
its  association  with  a  material  organism,  is 
able  to  receive  impressions  from  the  things 
of  sense,  to  learn  both  about  them  and 
through  them.  The  first  constitutes  sci- 
ence; the  second  affords  the  lessons  of  a 
wider  wisdom  for  which  the  results  of  sci- 
entific investigation  furnish  the  data.  To 
stop  with  the  first  is  to  imitate  the  child 
who  might  think  that  he  had  mastered  the 
great  drama  because  he  could  name  every 
letter  in  it,  or,  at  most,  the  grammarian, 
caring  only  for  parts  of  speech,  the  forms 
1S4 


plature  a  ]VIanifestation  of  Qod 


and  combinations  of  words,  and  neglecting 
the  thoughts  for  the  expression  of  which 
words  and  their  relations  exist. 

So  far  as  our  knowledge  of  nature  is 
accurate  it  is  knowledge  of  Divine  thought, 
that  is,  of  reality.  Order,  design,  care, 
and  the  rest,  are  forms  of  speech  through 
which  the  Author  of  nature  makes  himself 
known  to  man.  The  material  universe  is 
the  manifestation  of  the  Divine  mind. 
The  shaping  of  a  crystal  or  the  formation 
of  a  drop  of  dew  is  a  message  direct  from 
the  mind  of  the  Maker. 

It  would  correct  many  of  our  miscon- 
ceptions about  the  hostile  relations  of 
science  to  religion  if  we  could  save  more 
time  to  consider  these  thoughts  of  God 
that  are  to  us-ward  in  nature.  The  silences 
are  eloquent  with  them.  If  we  would  de- 
clare and  speak  of  them  they  are  more  than 
can  be  numbered. 

What  conflict  there  has  been,  and  still 
is,  between  theology,  man's 
interpretation  of  the   Bible,  T^e  ^^^se  of 
and  science,  man's  explana-        ^^   ^^ 
tion  of  nature,  is  largely  due  to  one  cause. 
185 


Ideas  from  ]\[atupe 


We  know  in  part  ;  we  are  ambitious  to 
prophesy  in  full.  The  ill-defined  annoys 
the  intellect  as  it  does  the  eye.  We  are  in 
haste  for  a  completed  system  of  belief,  ex- 
pressed in  Articles  of  Faith  numbered  and 
stereotyped,  and  for  a  universal  science 
centered  in  a  single  thought.  We  have 
neither.  In  Christianity  we  have  a  "  kindly 
light,"  sufficient,  if  we  follow  it,  to  make 
sure  our  next  step  out  of  the  miry  slough  of 
self  and  toward  the  city  of  God.  In  science 
we  have  a  little  real  knowledge  of  first 
principles,  gained  in  spite  of  many  failures, 
the  failures  being  valuable  correctives  of 
our  own  frailties,  reminders  of  our  own 
limitations,  and  the  effort  being  that  which 
gives  to  the  knowledge  its  greatest  value. 

Theology  and  science  are  both  pro- 
gressive, because  human  and  incomplete. 
Christianity,  by  its  perfect  adaptation  to 
the  needs  of  man,  vindicates  its  claim  to 
be  final  like  nature,  to  be  the  work  of  the 
same  author.  Nature  and  the  gospel  re- 
main ;  theology  and  science  fluctuate, 
though  moving  forward  to  a  nearer  view 
of  the  unity  and  harmony  of  truth. 
i86 


flature  a  JVIanifestation  of  Qod 

Again  and  again  statements  of  belief 
which  were  honestly  intended  to  embody 
only  the  eternal  verities  of  Christianity 
are  seen  to  have  included  some  transient 
phase  of  human  opinion,  and  have  to  be 
restated  in  the  light  of  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  original  records  and  a 
fuller  appreciation  of  the  lessons  to  be 
learned  from  the  history  of  the  faith.  In 
like  manner,  explanations  of  natural  phe- 
nomena once  held  to  be  sufficient  have 
been  gradually  modified  or  wholly  aban- 
doned. More  than  this,  two  text-books  on 
the  same  science,  published  to-day,  may 
contain  conflicting  explanations  of  the 
same  fact.  Different  men  have  different 
views  of  the  same  thing,  and  so  the  struggle 
after  truth  soon  becomes  the  battle  of  be- 
liefs. The  theologian  is  often  represented 
as  the  one  most  ready  to  draw  the  sword 
in  defense  of  his  creed ;  if  so  it  is  wholly  to 
his  honor.  But  he  must  not  claim  all  the 
credit.  The  goodly  brotherhood  of  scien- 
tists have  also  their  differences  of  opinion, 
and  the  epithets  they  exchange    are    not 

always  those  most  appropriate  to  the  ex- 
187 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


pression  of  brotherly  love  and  mutual  ad- 
miration. The  conflict  between  Neo- 
Darwinian  and  Neo-Lamarkian  may  not 
exhibit  all  the  fervid  glow  of  that  between 
Arminian  and  Calvinist,  but  then  the  latter 
combatants  wage  battle  on  a  more  mo- 
mentous issue. 

Men  have  contended  about  the  definite 
combination  of  elements,  the  factors  of 
evolution,  and  like  questions,  and  worthily, 
for  in  the  strife  of  rival  views  truth  be- 
comes manifest.  No  apology  is  required 
for  the  earnestness  the  Christian  has  shown 
in  defending  any  opinion  he  has  thought 
to  be  implied  in  belief  in  God,  immortal- 
ity, and  inspiration. 

Man's  progress  toward  truth  has  been 
mainly  by  the  elimination  of  human  mis- 
conceptions. His  first  views  are  almost 
always  inadequate,  often  wholly  erroneous. 
This  is  seen  alike  in  the  history  of  the  for- 
mation of  a  natural  science  and  of  a  system 
of  theology.  It  is  true  that  we  have  spent 
more  centuries  and  made  more  failures  over 
the  lesson  implied  in  the  words  ''  Our  Fa- 
ther," than  in  finding  a  rational  explanation 


i88 


]\[atjure  a  ]V[anifestation  of  Qod 


for  the  occurrence  of  fossils  in  the  rocks, 
because  the  hindrance  of  a  defective  will 
operates  more  strongly  in  the  former  case. 
Both  instances  alike  illustrate  man's  ca- 
pacity for  bungling.  A  record  of  the 
errors  of  the  human  mind  at  work  on  the 
doctrines  of  Christ,  since  those  doctrines 
were  fairly  put  before  the  world,  makes 
lively  reading ;  so  does  a  similar  record  of 
the  efforts  of  man  to  explain  natural  pro- 
cesses, efforts  which  have  none  the  less 
resulted  in  the  formation  of  sciences  of 
great  value,  such  as  astronomy,  geography, 
geology,  medicine. 

A  skillful  writer,  who  might  think  .it 
worth  his  time,  could  easily  compile  a 
"  History  of  the  Conflict  of  Medicine  with 
Science,"  which  would  make  a  very  sorry 
showing  for  the  physician.  It  would  only 
be  necessary  to  record  the  mistakes  that 
have  been  made  concerning  the  structure 
of  the  human  body  and  the  functions  of  its 
organs,  the  cause  and  cure  of  disease,  and 
hold  them  up  as  examples  of  the  doctrines 
of  medicine,  and  on  the  other  hand  credit 
all  valuable  discoveries  to  science — plainly 


Ideas  from  jiature 


its  due,  since  science  is  truth.  A  graphic 
description  of  the  quarrels  of  rival  schools 
would  give  zest  to  the  whole,  while  the 
pharmacopoeia  of  different  ages  would  prove 
an  inexhaustible  treasury  from  which  to 
draw  absurdities  sufficient  to  match  any 
system  of  theology. 

But  such  writing  would  not  be  history  ; 
it  would  not  even  be  a  valuable  contribu- 
tion to  the  study  of  human  nature.  An 
impartial  record  of  the  progress  of  the 
human  mind  in  the  interpretation  of  either 
nature  or  the  Bible  would  be  most  valuable, 
but  it  must  be  attempted  by  one  who  has  full 
sympathy  with  man  in  his  search  for  the 
light.  A  splendid  record  it  is,  full  of  fail- 
ures ;  not  splendid  because  of  its  failures, 
but  because  of  the  earnestness  that  can  take 
to  heart  the  kindly  lesson  of  failure  and  try 
again.  Such  a  one  must  also  have  caught 
some  hint  of  the  divine  sympathy  expressed 
in  the  conditions  of  man's  lot.  So  precious 
is  the  honest  desire  to  find  the  truth  that, 
by  supreme  appointment,  he  only  may  find 
it  who  seeks  for  it  as  for  hid  treasure ;  he 

who  thus  seeks  shall  find. 
190 


platjure  a  JVEanifestation  of  Qod 

Nature  is  the  manifestation  of  God  in 
things  material ;  Christianity  in  things 
spiritual.  Even  in  the  least 
of  his  works  the  being  and  ^^PP^eirten- 
attributes  of  the  maker  are  ^^^^  ^^^^' 
shown.  All  truth  is  divine  testation 
truth,  harmonious  and  helpful,  whether  dis- 
covered or  revealed.  Science  has  already 
done  valuable  service  to  religion  by  widen- 
ing our  conception  of  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse and  helping  to  deliver  us  from  much 
hurtful  superstition.  Religion  is  pointing 
out  to  science  that  any  explanation  of  na- 
ture that  regards  only  material  things 
utterly  fails  to  be  final,  because  it  cannot 
answer  the  most  pressing  questions  sug- 
gested by  a  study  of  those  material  things. 
Religion  alone  reveals  that  unknown  factor 
encountered  in  every  phenomenon,  the 
cause  of  natural  causes,  which  is  only  ren- 
dered more  necessary  as  mechanical  expla- 
nations are  extended — even  God,  incompre- 
hensible yet  knowable,  infinite  yet  personal. 

If  there  is  this  helpfulness  and  harmony 
between  science  and  the  Christian  religion, 
as  so  many  of  the  leaders  of    science  in 
191 


Ideas  from  ]\[atupe 


every  department  assure  us  there  is,  then 
this  harmony  tends  to  enforce  the  claims 
of  that  religion  on  our  loyalty.  Authori- 
ties tell  us  that  the  greatest  theological 
monograph  in  our  language  is  Butler's 
"  Analogy."  ^  Its  theme  is  this  :  The  con- 
stitution and  course  of  nature,  z.  e.,  the 
providential  treatment  of  man  in  nature, 
make  known  the  same  kind  of  divine  gov- 
ernment as  that  which  revealed  religion 
declares  ;  they  present  the  same  kind  of 
difficulties,  so  "  that  he  who  denies  the 
Scripture  to  have  been  from  God  upon 
account  of  these  difficulties  may,  for  the 
very  same  reason,  deny  the  world  to  have 
been  formed  by  him. "  The  argument  shows 
that  Christianity  is  wholly  reasonable. 

1  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  "Analogy"  has  be- 
come too  difficult  reading  for  the  modern  student.  It 
may  be  true,  as  is  often  said,  that  its  reasoning  is  adap- 
ted to  a  phase  of  doubt  through  which  the  world  has 
passed,  but  it  is  a  phase  often  repeated  in  the  spiritual 
history  of  the  individual.  It  is  a  curiously  weak  objec- 
tion to  make  that,  at  best,  it  only  proves  Christianity  to 
be  "not  unreasonable."  Not  a  few  would  be  steadied 
to  endure  the  stress  of  the  storm  of  doubt  by  the  set- 
tled conviction  that  the  Christian  scheme  is  not  dis- 
credited in  the  high  court  of  right  reason. 
192 


]N[atJure  a  ]VIanifestation  of  Qod 

This  harmony  reaches  farther  than  we 
often  think.  We  are  accustomed  to  speak 
of  religion  as  resting  on  faith  and  of  con- 
trasting with  this  the  method  of  science, 
which  is  to  supply  knowledge  or  demon- 
strated truth. 

But  science  also  demands  faith  of  its 
followers,  faith  in  the  unseen,  for  instance 
those  mysterious  forms  of  energy  which 
we  cannot  even  fashion  to  our  fancy.  A 
scientific  induction  is,  in  analysis,  an  act  of 
faith.  Without  this  faith  there  would  be  no 
science.  It  is  equally  true  on  the  other 
hand,  that  religion  offers  knowledge  as  a 
foundation  for  the  faith  which  it  requires. 
Christ  promised  that  if  it  be  the  will  of  any 
man  to  do  God's  will  he  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine.  Paul,  with  masterly  insight  into 
the  strength  as  well  as  the  weakness  of 
human  nature,  gave  his  great  lesson  in  the 
statement  of  a  creed,  "  I  know  whom  I 
have  believed."  The  assurance  that  satis- 
fies him  is  that  hereafter  he  shall  know  in 
its  fullness  what  he  now  knows  but  in  part. 

Those  modern  teachings  that  would  find 
a  shelter  for  religion  from  the  windy  storm 

N  193 


Ideas  from  ]^atupe 


and  tempest  of  nineteenth  century  doubt 
and  criticism  in  the  fact  that  it  satisfies  the 
emotional  nature,  offer  but  a  doubtful  good. 
Religion  does  not  seek  a  shelter ;  it  offers 
one,  the  only  one.  It  speaks  with  author- 
ity and  to  the  whole  man.  That  it  does 
satisfy  the  emotional  nature,  refine  and 
sanctify  the  feelings  is  much ;  but  there 
is  more — it  also  addresses  the  intellect. 
Christian  faith  stands  rooted  in  knowledge. 

The   Bible  furnishes  the   only  rational 

basis    for  philosophy,   including  all  being 

,  ,         under  the  two  terms  of  a  re- 

^  _  lation.  Creator  and  created. 
Explanation  j^  defines  that  relation,  saving 
us  from  much  fruitless  speculation,  ''  One 
God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and 
through  all  and  in  all."^  Its  warrant  ap- 
proves of  the  freest  investigation  of  nature 
by  assuring  us  that  it  is  God's  handiwork, 
and  therefore  that  it  will  not  put  us  to  in- 

^  Eph.  4  :  6.  The  doctrine  of  the  ivnnanence  of  the 
Creator  in  his  creation  is  not  a  new  idea,  as  many  seem 
to  suppose.  It  was  thus  admirably  stated  by  Paul,  and, 
to  prevent  its  being  volatilized  into  pantheism,  he  fixed 
it  with  the  other  half  of  the  whole  truth — the  trans- 
cendence  of  God. 

194 


ptature  a  ]VEanifestation  of  Qod 

tellectual  confusion  in  our  efforts  to  search 
out  its  meaning. 

Christ  has  given  us  the  only  explanation 
of  human  Hfe  and  human  duty  which  is 
consistent  with  the  conditions  of  life  and 
the  nature  of  man  :  "  Strive  to  enter  in  at 
the  strait  gate  :  for  many,  I  say  unto  you, 
will  seek  to  enter  in,  and  shall  not  be 
able."  ^  In  the  sense  in  which  this  is  opti- 
mistic, optimism  is  true ;  in  any  other 
sense  it  is  partial  and  misleading.^ 

Christianity  demands  the  submission  of 
the  intellect  to  its  authority ;  but  its  argu- 
ments addressed  to  eye  and  ear,  its  analo- 
gies with  the  conditions  and  experiences  of 
this  earthly  life,  as  well  as  its  proofs  af- 
forded to  the  spiritual  perception,  render 
that  submission  a  reasonable  service,  as 
reasonable  as  is  the  sick  man's  submission 

1  Luke  13  :  24. 

^  Christianity  is  optimistic  in  that  it  holds  out  a  prom- 
ise of  the  final  triumph  of  good  ;  but  it  uniformly  repre- 
sents that  triumph  as  to  be  shared,  not,  as  the  eager 
optimist  seems  sometimes  to  assume,  by  those  who  trust 
to  the  current  of  human  tendency,  but  by  those  who 
struggle  against  that  current  through  the  help  which  the 
gospel  brings. 

195 


Ideas  from  jJature 


to  the  authority  of  the  skilled  physician,  as 
reasonable  as  is  the  traveler's  submission 
to  the  authority  of  an  accredited  guide. 
So  we  yield  to  authority  in  many  things, 
not  merely  through  habit  or  ed  cation,  but 
because  we  recognize  in  that  authority  a 
wisdom  superior  to  our  own.  No  one  of 
us  will  claim  that  he  has  found  a  guide  to 
fullness  of  life  who  can  for  a  moment  en- 
dure comparison  with  Jesus  Christ.  In 
admitting  this  we  have  bound  ourselves  by 
the  most  solemn  obligation  to  yield  our 
lives  to  his  guidance.  That  is  what  the 
submission  of  reason  to  authority  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  means,  to  yield  our  own 
inadequately  informed  reason  to  the  direc- 
tion of  the  superior  reason  of  an  unerring 
guide,  an  act  which  our  own  reason  requires 
so  far  as  ours  is  right  reason. 

Christ  takes  possession  of  the  very  cita- 
del of  the  soul,  directing  and  strengthening 
the  will.  He  elevates  the  moral  sense, 
transforming  duty  into  love.  If  the  tri- 
umphs of  Christianity  are  more  evident  in 
this  latter  aspect,  it  is  because  reason  and 

will  and  feeling  have  wrought  as  one  in  the 
196 


piatural  Law  and  ]V[iracle 


conflict  with  evil.  The  life  of  classic 
Greece,  in  the  pride  of  its  intellectual  su- 
premacy, is  put  to  shame  by  the  humanity 
of  a  Christian  New  England  village,  because 
in  the  latter,  to  the  full  extent  to  which  it 
is  Christian,  Christ  has  not  only  won  the 
affections  but  has  also  received  the  alle- 
giance of  the  understanding. 

Christianity  is  much  more  than  a  stirring 
or  refining  of  the  emotional  nature.  Faith 
like  that  which  abounds  in  the  eighth  chap- 
ter of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  cannot 
find  its  necessary  inspiration  in  myths, 
however  beautiful  or  instructive,  or  even 
in  the  excellence  of  moral  precepts  alone. 
Christ  claims  the  whole  man,  and  he  alone 
makes  man  whole.  It  is  true  that  we  may 
find  among  skeptics  men  of  kind  hearts 
and  admirable  lives,  but  we  must  remem- 
ber that  they  have  grown  up  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  Christian  environment  and  a 
public  opinion  whose  most  valuable  pre- 
cepts are  derived  from  Christian  teachings. 

Those  who  offer  us  rationalism  as  a 
guide  for  the  intellect,  retaining  religion  as 
a  solace  for  the  feelings,  propose  a  divided 
197 


Ideas  from  jfature 


allegiance,  an    impossible    service  of    two 

masters.     Christianity  must 

^^^         be  supreme  ;  only  so  can  its 

Supreme  triumphs  continue.  It  rules 
out  all  that  is  false,  it  gives  a  welcome  to 
all  that  is  true,  from  whatever  source  it 
may  come.  "  He  that  is  not  with  me  is 
against  me,"  is  coupled  with  ''  He  that  is 
not  against  us  is  for  us,"  an  authoritative 
definition  of  Christian  exclusiveness  and 
Christian  liberality.  Error  is  to  be  exclu- 
ded, no  matter  how  plausible ;  truth  is  to 
be  accepted,  however  offensive  to  human 
nature,  humiliating  to  party  spirit,  or  hos- 
tile to  preconceived  opinion. 

It  is  its  completeness  of  adaptation  that 
makes  Christianity  the  only  natural  relig- 
ion, the  only  one  fully  qualified  to  touch 
human  nature  on  every  side,  to  reach  its 
deepest  needs  and  direct  its  loftiest  aspira- 
tions, hence  the  only  religion  fitted  to  be 
universal. 

There  may  be  ten  great  religions  in  the 

world,  or  more,  or  less.      The  Bible  does 

not  authorize  us  to  belittle  what  is  excellent 

in  creeds  not  Christian.     Its  teachings  are 

198 


jlatural  Law  and  JVIiracIe 


explicit  on  this  point.  God  has  furnished 
for  all  generations  in  all  lands  witnesses  to 
his  rule  of  power  and  right,  in  the  heavens 
above  and  in  the  earth  beneath,  and  in  the 
law  written  in  the  heart  of  man.^  Who- 
ever has  listened  to  these  has  gained  pre- 
cepts of  wisdom  for  the  guidance  of  life. 
Whatever  of  truth  heathen  systems  con- 
tained was  a  light  glimmering  in  a  dark 
place,  to  which  men  did  well  to  take  heed. 
In  the  gloom  of  the  night  the  shining  of 
the  faintest  ray  is  a  welcome  guidance,  but 
now  that  the  night  is  past  and  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  is  risen,  we  do  not  want  the 
help  of  torch  or  taper. 

We  do  not  need  to  decry  the  teachings 
of  the  seers  and  philosophers  of  the  hea- 
then world,  neither  are  we  called  upon  to 
become  their  disciples.  All  that  they  have 
given,  and  it  is  much,  Christ  also  gives  with 
much  more.  We  search  out  their  sage 
precepts  in  ponderous  volumes ;  Christ  en- 
dowed his  words  with  life,  with  eternal 
youth  and  freshness,  and  sent  them  forth 
to  mingle  among  men,  to  be  companions 


^  Rom.  2  :  14,  15. 

199 


Ideas  from  ]\[ature 


and  friends,  to  meet  us  in  the  streets  and 
talk  with  us  in  the  home.  The  good  Sa- 
maritan is  a  man  we  know,  and  the  return 
of  the  prodigal  happened  in  our  native  vil- 
lage. 

Often  it  seems  that  the  most  astounding 
of  miracles  is  this  :  The  words  of  Jesus, 
all  we  have  of  them,  make  together  not 
more  than  a  thin  pamphlet,  not  much  longer 
than  an  old-fashioned  sermon,  yet  they  con- 
tain, as  Ewald  said  to  Stanley,  all  the  wis- 
dom of  the  world.  Who  shall  estimate 
their  power  in  the  world  ?  a  power  greater 
to-day  than  it  ever  was  before  !  The  world 
has  not  outgrown  them,  it  has  not  yet 
grown  up  to  them ;  if  in  any  period  it  has 
neglected  them,  that  has  been  a  period  of 
decline,  not  advance. 

We  may  learn  many  profitable  lessons 
by  the  comparative  study  of  religions,  if 
we  inquire  wisely,  but  none  more  valuable 
than  this,  the  matchless  superiority  of 
Christ  over  all  other  masters. 

The  religion  which  holds  the  promise  of 
the  future  is  that  which  expresses  the 
gospel  of    Christ  in  its  completeness  and 


flature  a  ]\^anifes1iation  of  Qod 


simplicity,  and  equally  reflects  that  full 
sympathy  with  nature  which  is  a  marked 
characteristic  of  the  Bible,  recognizing  that 
the  teachings  of  nature  form  a  part  of 
God's  message  to  man.  It  is  not  claimed 
that  the  pulpit  should  herald  each  fresh 
discovery  of  science,  or  approve  each  new 
hypothesis  ;  it  has  better  work  to  do.  But 
it  must  not  condemn  any  doctrine  of  sci- 
ence as  contrary  to  the  Bible  unless  it 
has  evidence  sufficient  to  sustain  that  ver- 
dict. 

Theology  should  have  science  as  its  ally ; 
it  may  do  so  by  frankly  acknowledging 
what  is  true  in  science.  The  alliance 
makes  no  call  for  compromise. 

The  essential  unity  and  inner  harmony 
of  all  truth  from  every  source  have  been 
recognized  by  the  noblest  souls  in  past 
generations,  and  are  especially  enforced  in 
our  own  age  by  the  rapid  progress  of  in- 
vestigation which  is  bringing  the  bounda- 
ries of  the  various  realms  of  thought  nearer 
together.  Sooner  or  later  all  these  artifi- 
cial boundaries  will  disappear. 

The  Christian  must  not  hesitate  to  ac- 

20I 


Ideas  from  ]\[atiupe 


cept,  in  the  fuller  meaning  it   has  to-day, 
the  sublime  utterance  of  the  psalmist, 

The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God. 

The  student  in  the  laboratory  may  find 
fresh  inspiration  for  his  work  in  the  tri- 
umphant cry  of  the  devout  astronomer, 
half  dazed  with  the  splendor  of  the  laws  he 
had  discovered, 

O  God,  I  think  thy  thoughts  after  thee. 


202 


DATE  DUE 

DEMCO  38-297 

V  •  nriseiU!*;-*: 


